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 %ACCEPTING REJECTING PERSONAL DIFFERENCES EVIL SIN+970203
%BLAME SHAME GUILT DISINTEGRATION COMFORT EMBARRASS+970203
%UNFAMILIAR DUTY ACCENTUATE ALIENATION WEAK CONCEAL+970203
 %POWER CORRUPTS DENY LOVE HEALTHY WHOLE SELF OTHER+970203
 %RELATIONSHIPS GOOD KNOWLEDGE PEACEMAKER RECONCILE 970203

     We often behave in disintegrative ways in response to
our differences.

     We often find it difficult to accept our differences;
and  reject people who are different,  or who differ  from
us.

     We often feel uncomfortable with different people who
are unfamiliar to us.

     We  may  even feel it is our duty to  accentuate  our
differences   and  use  our  differences  as  grounds  for
engendering shame, guilt and alienation.

     We  often motivate weak people  are motivated to  try
to  conceal,   eliminate,   minimize,  and/or  deny  their
differences---because  we,   who are powerful,   will  not
accept them as they are because of their differences.

     We love to be with people who are like us because  we
are  often embarrassed when we are with people who are not
like  us---and often we blame those who are different  for
our embarrassment.

     Sometimes in our weakness we do not recognize,  name,
describe  and deal honestly with our differences---because
we  fear  that  our  differences  will  be  occasions  for
rejection, condemnation, excommunication, shame, guilt and
alienation.

     Denying,  concealing, rejecting, ignoring, and trying
to  eliminate our differences,  usually leads to  personal
and  communal  disintegration---for  they  tear  us  apart
rather than move us toward healthy integration.

     When  our  differences are occasions  for  generating
anxiety,  embarrassment, shame, guilt, fear,  coercion and
violence---our relationships are evil relationships;   not
relationships  of  love,  understanding,   reconciliation,
peacemaking, sympathy, empathy and healing.

     When  we  accentuate  our differences,   we  lay  the
foundations for personal and communal disintegration.

     There  are  occasions and situations when we will  do
well to recognize,  name, describe,  share,  celebrate and
take  advantage  of  our  differences---for  there  are  a
varieties  of gifts given to us by one God who created  us
all  different  ---  and Who Loves us all just as we  are;
different.

     We  need to welcome each other's different  gifts  in
order to be a whole community.   If we were all alike,  we
could  not  be  a whole community;   we  could  not  enjoy
personal and communal integrity.

     Personal    and   communal   integrity   entail   the
integration  of many kinds of differences into the  whole,
which transcends all the differences which are together in
the whole.

     We  can enjoy personal and communal integrity only to
the  extent that we share our differences in  sharing  our
different gifts---openly,  honestly and without apology or
embarrassment.

     We  need to welcome the stranger who is not  familiar
to  us,  for the stranger can bring into our community new
insights, new perceptions, new ideals,  new values and new
possibilities for personal and communal integration.

     If we fear and reject those who are different we will
be  haunted  by and be victims of  prejudice,   ignorance,
intolerance and alienation.

     We are fools if we insist that others must be like us
or be our enemies.

     Conformity  is not the key to personal  and  communal
integrity.  Non-conformity is not the essence of evil.

     The  essence  of  evil  is to be  found  in  personal
relationships   which  are  characterized  by  alienation,
estrangement, fear, and self-righteous excommunications.

     The  essence  of evil is not  found  within  persons,
places,  things, images, words,  thoughts or desires---but
rather within personal RELATIONSHIPS.

     When  we try to locate evil within persons,   places,
things,   images,   words,  thoughts  and/or  desires---we
thereby  engender evil RELATIONSHIPS in tragic ways we are
unlikely to recognize.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
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