Coming Down the Mountain 10

Today I am called upon to look at the prejudice that I carry in my heart.  Not just contempt prior to investigation, which allows me to lazily pass judgment on people, places and things that perhaps I would like if I were not so lazy, but these people, causes or institutions that I believe I have investigated and found to be contemptible.  Even though I profess to love people of each nationality, and I do, I have stereotyped others, either in a joking manner, or in a very real accusation, in a manner that condemns. ( I am often harshest to the category of white males.)  Ever since reading the Mars/Venus books I like to look at women from one point of view and men from another.  Before I got sober, to say that I feared and disliked police people would be an understatement;  now that I work with them I have found them to be cool, kind, and loving, at least to me.  Perhaps this is because of their views of me, seeing me as a volunteer rather than a perpetrator can certainly change our interaction.  The fact is that they are people, with a job to do, with good days and bad days; yet I will then judge them for choosing the job that they have.  I am a liberal, so the enemy is the conservative?  That was exhausting.  My father and I spent years arguing violently about politics.  It was during the Bush v Gore, I want to say fiasco, but in the spirit of this column I will say election, that I laid down my guns and just stopped.  I told him that I was done, that I would never mention politics to him again.  For the most part that is what happened, and we got to spend our last ten years together talking about sports, and even though he liked the hated Giants, and I liked the Dodgers, we were able to enjoy these conversations, and each other.  When I feel myself separate from anyone or anything I am separating myself from God, and from love.  It is time for me to open myself up to the broader picture, God is either everything, or God is nothing.  I know that is a tough pill to swallow, but what else is there?

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