Meditation for February 2025

In Times of Division
Can We Find Our Way
to Love & Accept Everyone?
______________
Terry L. 

QUESTION:
Does Free Speech include
the right to spew Hate?

In your opinion,
what does this bar graph
reflect about the United States?

QUESTION:
Have you experienced
hate speech yourself? 

Have you been in a chat thread
that included hate speech and
you remained silent and complicit?

  • In 2024 the American Defamation League received a 22% increase in reports of online hate speech from the year prior - including an 15% increase in physical threats;

  • People with disabilities were more likely to be harassed than in the year before, 45% compared to 35%;

  • LGBT people were the most harassed of the marginalized groups surveyed: LGBT people experienced increases in physical threats (from 6% to 14%);

  • Jewish adults were more likely to be harassed for their religion (34% of those harassed compared to 18% of non-Jews) and 41% changed their online behavior to avoid being recognized as Jewish. Nearly two-thirds (63%) felt less safe than they did last year;

  • Facebook remains the most common platform where harassment was experienced at 61% of harassment.

https://www.adl.org/resources/report/online-hate-and-harassment-american-experience-2021
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/online-hate-and-harassment-american-experience-2024

The month of February,
the season of Valentine's
leads us to think of expressions of love.  

I don’t know about you but if I watch too much News lately -- or, God forbid, have something sent to me from that cesspool of misinformation called Facebook -- I find that I’m just not “feeling the love” that we claim, as Christians, we have for all God's children --  each of us miraculously born with that same Eternal Spirit flowing through us.

Our All-Encompassing Creator is surely alone in the ability to show no partiality.  As imperfect beings we humans lack that ability. 

Where I live -- and perhaps you can relate -- social and political views have become deeply entrenched and partial.  We are more disagreeable in our disagreement. We mistrust and are even mean-spirited to people who vote, think, or live their lives differently from us.  

As happened in the spiritual journeys of both Peter and Paul, our impartial God also calls us to rethink how we treat those who differ from us.

Do you remember Paul’s story?  

An orthodox Jew who, at first, persecuted the followers of Jesus of Nazareth he thought were blasphemers.  And, even after his conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul remained entrenched in his thinking that Gentiles (non-Jews) were “unclean” and could not possibly be included in the promises that he was so certain his God had made to his Jewish people alone through their patriarchs Abraham and Moses.

Paul wrongly viewed God's humanity as divided between "us" and "them" only to have his vision evolve into a more universalist direction.  He made that miraculous journey from exclusivist to inclusivist.  His "we" versus "they" manner of thinking and speaking would be reformed and he would ultimately declare: "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, yet all are justified freely by his grace..."

Do you remember Peter's story?

In The Acts of the Apostles Chapter 10 God commanded Peter in a vision to rethink his own vision of who God chose to include in the club -  to rethink God’s fully encompassing love of all the world’s people.  Peter had a bias and needed to rethink his partiality in which he viewed one group as favored over another.  At the home of Cornelius, a Roman army officer and a Gentile, Peter’s reformation in thinking becomes clear as he teaches that the forgiveness we find for ourselves in the sacrificial act of Jesus is poured out upon everyone who believes in this message of love and forgiveness.

In the verses that follow this story we learn of how the Eternal Spirit then came to rest on those Gentiles gathered there, and Peter, putting away his former biases, puts his newly inclusive understanding of God into practice and baptizes them into the newly emerging Christian faith.

Like Peter and Paul,

we too are called to set aside practices and speech that favor some people over others

and to live out the radical impartiality and all-including love we know to be the true way to live favored by our Divine Source. 

God is Love.

And Jesus commands us to Love One Another.

Treat others the way you prefer to be treated.

And give, give this love -- even to those who persecute you.

In an Age of Division
Can We Find Our Way
to Love & Accept Everyone?
___________________

Terry's Monthly Meditations

____________

______________________________

Terry’s “Good Living” Guide:

Body:
Avoid the 3 PsBsSs
Processed Foods, Phthalates, Plastics;
Beef, Butter, Breads;
Sedentary activities, Sugars, Salt.
Trust me,
you’ll be feeling better in no time!

Mind & Spirit:
Avoid the 3 F’s
Manufactured in these mediums are
misinformation, fear, anger and hate!

JOIN ME IN ENSURING AN EDUCATED CITIZENRY!

JOIN ME IN ENSURING AN EDUCATED CITIZENRY!

Join me in ensuring an educated citizenry!
BECOME A SUSTAINING MEMBER TODAY!

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