Christianity is a religion about God, God’s love for creation, and the mercy and grace God is willing to give to those who welcome it. All that is good and true can and will find itself embraced by God insofar as it is good and true; in that embrace, God will bring them together, uniting them so that together they can be led to and directed towards even greater and greater goods, until, at least, they embrace not only that which is good, but the source and foundation of every good, which is God. We should do likewise. This is why, when some goodness is found, we should promote it in relation to that goodness, and if necessary, if it is found in a bad context, take it out of that context and redirect it to the good in which it should be placed. If we focus, not on what is good, but what we consider to be bad, constantly denouncing the bad instead of looking for and promoting that good, we find ourselves looking backward, focusing on what is bad, letting it influence and corrupt our thinking; we are, in this way, like Lot’s wife, and risk becoming stuck in our backward introspection.
If we want to promote the Christian faith, we must do so with grace, encouraging people to engage in whatever goodness they know and understand. That way we can keep the focus on what is good and true instead of letting what is bad dominate our thoughts and actions. We should do so with kindness and compassion, for if we are unkind and heartless, people will sense the hostility we have and react to that instead of the goodness we think they should embrace. Indeed, many of them will double-down on what they are doing, thinking what we have must not be good if we are shown to be so heartless and unloving. Certainly, we can critically examine and explain our concerns when someone goes astray, carefully explaining how or why we think they have gone wrong, but that must not be our focus; we should be more concerned in showing what is good and true, giving people reasons to desire such goodness for themselves than we should be in tearing them down and making them feel bad about themselves. We should especially show them the love and compassion God has shown us, for in that way, they will realize what God offers them, instead of thinking God is there, looking down upon them, trying to find a reason to damn them and make sure their existence is one of pure suffering. Thus, “One of the [desert- HK] fathers said, ‘A harsh word makes the good bad, but a good [word] benefits everybody.”[1]
How we engage others is important. There might be times when we must deal with a practical problem in haste, and in such situations, our kindness might not always be apparent, but in general, we should take care to show mercy, kindness and charity in what we do and in what we say. Our words should be complemented by our actions, and our actions complemented by our words. The more we show in deed that we care for others, the more they will realize what we say is more than just meaningless words and they will be open to consider what we have to say.
We must do what we can to disengage any strife that is before us. It is not easy, and sometimes, there is no good solution. But we must try, and we do that by keeping love as the inspiration for our actions. If we do not show mercy, if we are harsh with others, we will be the cause of strife, and through such strife, things will get worse. The harsher we are than what is prudential, the more strife we will create, and that strife, in the end, will only lead people, including ourselves, away from what is good and true: “Strife delivers a man to anger, anger to blindness, and blindness makes him work all manner of evil.”[2]’
Ignorance makes people do bad things, and, ultimately, cause their own suffering. When people are enraged, they are incapable of properly assessing the situation, and therefore, they will not truly know what is going on. Their actions will be done out of ignorance, and through such ignorance, they will often make things worse, leading people to become more engaged and therefore, act with even less understanding of the situation. Thus, unless the rage and ignorance it creates is countered, it leads to a never-ending cycle, where things continue to get worse and worse, until things either end badly, or people finally come to terms with their rage and try to stop it and repair the harm they have caused:
Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for edifying, as fits the occasion, that it may impart grace to those who hear. (Eph. 4:26-29 RSV).
We will experience anger in our lives. When we do, we should do what we can to pacify it, to let it work itself out so that we do not let it take control of us and lead us astray. The more we hold onto our anger, the worse we will become, and the more likely we will do something which we will later regret.
“The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood, but the mouth of the upright delivers men” (Prov. 12:6 RSV). We must, therefore, be careful in what we say, not letting evil come out of our mouth, never letting bad words be spoken with the intent to hurt the person we are talking to. Through it is often difficult, we should strive to let go of our anger, to not let it misdirect us and act contrary to the compassion and love we should be showing to others. Certainly, we will make mistakes, and our passions can get the best of us, but there is a difference between a momentary lapse and a general, harsh disposition. We must recognize our failings, and strive to do better. We must not let our anger create unnecessary strife, even as, if we find ourselves in a situation where there already is much strife, we should look for those who are being unjustly harmed by it and stand by them, helping them while encouraging those creating such strife to change their ways and begin to repair the harm they have caused others. That is why we must focus on what is good and true so that we can use it to either prevent strife, or when some strife has emerged, to extinguish it, for in the end, it is what is good and true, what is built upon hope, which will last, while all that is built upon anger, resentment, and strife, will not.
[1] John Wortley, trans., The Book of the Elders: Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2012), 186 [N665].
[2] John Wortley, trans., The Book of the Elders: Sayings of the Desert Fathers, 186 [N634].
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