Poisoned: Part 1

Lately I've notice that many people are essentially poisoned in their view to someone else. If you are poisoned and reading this, this will seem like the most natural thing in the world. "Of course I'm 'poisoned' towards them, do you know what they've done? What kind of person they are?" I have no idea, but I do know that people (all people) are capable of incredible evil. And how do we cope with that evil?

One way is to write the person off. Maybe it only takes one thing. "You did what? That's evil. You're a ________. Or maybe it takes lots of things, consistent evil actions, before it happens. "They'll never change. I've given up hope. They're a _______." Basically, we see them painted in one color. Once we see a person in one "global sense" (good/bad, nice/mean, evil/good) we justify our actions towards them, based on our judgment. Sadly, we do this everyday. Once we've decided to label someone as evil (or loser, moron, always wrong, beyond hope, etc) we can then justify ignoring the second commandment (and many others) and treat them like garbage. As long as it's not as bad as they've treated you or someone else, it's OK. If they're an adulterer, it's OK to gossip about them. As long as they are truly evil, we can be as slanderous, ignorant, condescending, angry, deceptive, inhospitable, cruel, etc. as we want to be. They deserve it after all, they're evil.

I've noticed this before (in myself and others) but recently being in counseling has made me more and more aware of it. People can and do write off their own father, wife, husband, pastor, church, friends, co-workers, or sibling. Somehow we allow ourselves to become poisoned and the poison affects us. Slowly it eats away at us, affecting our other relationships, our relationship with God, and even our health. You don't even notice it at first, so subtle it is. But eventually it will take you. If you let it.

Is there another way to deal with the problem of evil in others? I have some ideas. And let me just say that I'm not saying that we should allow evil in others to flourish and just passively accept it. The abused should leave and seek justice from their abusers and we need to react assertively when we are sinned against. In marriage, friendships, work, and family separations or the severing of relationship is sometimes necessary.

My ideas all involve focusing on people's actions; what if we would truly see people according to their actions and not the global labels we want to give them? To discipline ourselves to separate the actions from the person as an entity made by God? To learn to be angry/hurt/devastated by what a person has chosen to do and not to give into the temptation to write them off as a human being. What if we could stop trying to judge people's motives and just focus on what they've actually done? Can we discover how to give strong and appropriate consequences for evil actions yet remind ourselves that a person's actions isn't who the person is (at least not all of them)?

Choosing to focus on the person's actions is admittedly a lot more work then choosing to label them in a global, universal sense and simply writing them off. It means we truly have to struggle with the dark side of human nature, not just in others but in ourselves as well. Can you face the evil inside of others, inside of you? I think we need to try. More on this tomorrow.

May Light increase!