Howdy, stranger! I’m perceiving you as a child of God, and in return I want you to see me the same way.
This is the next little discovery I’ve made as I toy with the idea of reframing my worldview. The ethic of mutual reciprocity (i.e. the Golden Rule) is so easily distorted to “treat me as I want to be treated.” It is so easy to make love conditional, which in effect makes it un-love because true love is unconditional. So how do I deal with my preconceived expectation that because I’m going to treat other people as I want to be treated that they are going to treat me that way in return? For as little as I understand about the law of attraction (The Secret) it does seem to me that such “wrong” thinking might truly interfere with the principle’s functionality. “Blessed are you when others shall curse and revile you for behaving like I have asked you to.” Forgive the liberal paraphrase of gospel, but I’m beginning to wonder if this is what Jesus was talking about. If I decide to treat Osama bin Laden with the same respect and dignity that I wish to be accorded to myself, I cannot let that intention be thwarted when he doesn’t receive it in the way I expect him to. He may well respond in a violent and destructive way, but that only leaves me with the choice of lowering myself to his level or of being faithful to my belief that there is a better, higher way. Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr.; each paid the ultimate price for being true to their convictions, and they may have been able to do so with the transcendent understanding that the ultimate reward justifies the cost.
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