"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy."
-- Fr. Thomas Merton
(Image from Wikimedia Commons)
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I wish more people understood this thought - deeply!
ReplyDeleteWhat has happened to our world? Somebody, please, tell me. This was what I was taught when I was growing up. This was how the grown-ups around me, for the most part, behaved. No more. Those same people are now some of the most judgmental people I know when it comes to giving people a hand out/up which is part of loving others. What happened in the intervening 50 years? Now it is do they deserve it, could they provide for themselves if they made better choice, I don't agree with their lifestyle, etc., etc. It makes me tired.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn L.
Yes, I was taught this way too. I guess the thought in those days was that if people made bad choices, there was something about their circumstances that caused them to make those bad choices.
ReplyDeleteMy mother used to say of people who didn't behave in either a good or proper way: "They just don't know any better." I was also taught by teachers and Sunday school teachers to say of anyone I might tend to judge, "There but for the grace of God go I." We could certainly use such examples today of what USED to be conventional wisdom.
Yes to all of the above.
ReplyDelete