The savagery and lack of sensitivity bandied about when we are discussing difficult news is shocking at times. Two thousand years of Christian culture dissipate like steam in a torrent of unkindness. To boot, when religious figures such as priests or leaders of groups are caught up in this quagmire of hate, scaremongering and labelling, many Christians experience hurt, dismay, and disappointment.
What is wrong with us?! In their end-of-year and Christmas messages, our national leaders, including the archbishop, spoke on their concern about the vitriol spewed out in our social media interactions. The murder of Paulina Dembska clearly showed how, in our need to understand the incomprehensible, we revert to stereotypes and simplifications of complex issues.
All this does not happen only in the case of major news events. We judge mercilessly also closer to home: the sibling who is different from the rest of the family, the parents who come across as rigid, the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, the children who do not follow our own morals and mores, the person across the street who does not smile, and the other who smiles too much.
I believe that at the root of all types of vicious reactions there is a common element: fear. Fear of loss. Fear of the other. Fear of the unknown. Unless we help each other out to bring the fear out to light and see it for what it is, we will continue to project, displace and judge others.
A person who is deeply rooted in God’s love and secure in her or his being feels no need to moralise and berate others
A person who is deeply rooted in God’s love and secure in her or his being feels no need to moralise and berate others. As Christians, we are often tripped by the need to “convert” others: at times, our need to do so blinds us from truly listening to the other. And then, it is fear that takes over, and blinds us to the possible shreds of goodness the other person carries.
Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, by Pema ChodronIn Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, Pema Chodron recounts a friend’s attempt to test the belief that everyone is basically good: “Every day, she encountered friendly people, rude and arrogant people, manipulative people, and downright mean-spirited people. In each case, she tried to go past their defences, and contact their good sense, their humour and their kindness. When we last talked she had not yet met anyone who she felt lacked basic goodness, and she’s been trying for 15 years.”
While as Christians we cannot glibly take on the mantra of “live and let live”, which allows for little concern for the common good, St Augustine’s hauntingly beautiful words from the fourth century are what we need to hear: “Once for all, then, a short precept is given unto you: love God, and do what you will: whether you hold your peace, through love hold your peace; whether you cry out, through love cry out; whether you correct, through love correct; whether you spare, through love do you spare: In all things, let the root of love be within, for of this root can nothing spring but what is good.” (In epistulam Ioannis ad Parthos (Tractatus VII, 8)