More Love Please

I was reading about West Africa, the passage said (paraphrased) that it was the place European traders set up their bases to gather gold and slaves. I started thinking:

When was the first time a person looked at another person and thought ‘less’ instead of ‘same’ so they could make a slave?

This isn’t a history of slavery, discrimination, abuse or hatred. This is me asking myself questions.

When I look at other people do I see ‘same’ or do I see ‘less’?

Is my response to any person affected by their skin, gender, intellect, ability, sexuality, words or actions instead of by the command I was given to love?

This is not about accepting abuse. Not about cowering before bullies. Not about not rocking the boat. In fact, it is about facing and opposing all those things.

I just shared a video by Russell Brand, in it, he spoke about a yogi who asked the CND movement of the 60s what was the point of opposing the weapons while the mindset that caused the weapons remained? Regardless of the source, that question remains absolutely valid: if our hearts do not change then our words, our actions, our ideas are fruitless.

More love, please. I need more love to live in this world. I need more love to be an agent of change in this world. I need more love to cope with everything I see around me. I need more love just to get through this day without becoming the thing I so loudly profess to hate when I see it in others.

I need more love to see others who disagree with me as ‘same’ and not ‘less’

Once again, this is not aimed at anyone except me but it is offered, lovingly, as a reminder that maybe we could all do with seeing ‘same’ instead of ‘less’. And maybe, just maybe, we could all use more love.

⁷ My loved ones, let us devote ourselves to loving one another. Love comes straight from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and truly knows God. ⁸ Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:7-8