My High Horse

The alarming thing about such pride-blindness is the case with which it is justified. But we need not look far to see that this deceptive brand of self-justification is a universal destroyer of harmony and of love. It sets person against person, nation against nation. By it, every form of folly and violence can be made to look right, and even respectable. Of course it is not for us to condemn. We need to investigate ourselves.

The Best of Bill,  Humility, p. 40

*****

What we believe of the events around us is important but I have found that, if I am honest with myself, most of what I base my positions on politics is an emotional and knee-jerk response corresponding to whatever paradigm I have accepted as the truth. All I have to do to test this is to have a conversation with someone whose beliefs are different than mine. It is harder than I thought to move off what I believe no matter how open minded I think I am... no matter how well I've thought out my positions... how absolutely right, I am almost willing to go to war... to joust the windmills to the death from my high horse. When I discovered this I saw the source of conflict in the world. But what if the folks I am upset about are taking the rest of us down a perilous path towards destruction? What do I then? Do I take my spiritual axiom to the extreme and withdraw from the dialogue completely when all reason or passive resistance fails? Where would we be if Gandhi or Martin Luther King would have just prayed instead of stepping out of their safety zone to stand against injustice? On the other hand, where would the Western World be if Churchill would have surrendered to Hitler? Of course, these are extreme examples but they are sourced in the battle within. Let me resolve the battle within for direction as I rise from my cushion to follow the Heart of Compassion.

---

geo, 4,790