Tuesday, December 18, 2012

To Be or Not To Be

I’ve recently “unfriended” my first person ever on Facebook. I’m feeling very sad about that. Sad and angry and just all out of sorts. You see, I really really do believe in open discourse, about everything and anything, no restrictions. 

Somewhere in the Psalms (or maybe Proverbs?) it says: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” I take that to be a great little tidbit of wisdom. What good is it, after all, to only converse with people who have the same point of view as yourself? What do we learn? Nothing. We become dull. We need sharpening. Constant sharpening. 

Someone somewhere once said, “Can you listen to the poetry of your enemies?” In other words, can we enter into the deep feelings, desires, fears, hopes and hates of “the other.” We don’t have to agree, but until we understand, how do we build any lasting peace? 

So it was a Big Thing for me, The Unfriending. A Drastic Step, not to be taken lightly or without thought.