Learning to Love

How many times have we cast off someone because they were a little different? How many times have we, as a human race, decided that someone didn’t deserve a moment of compassion because they don’t hold to a point of view consistent with ours? I just finished watching an episode of one of the shows I’ve always loved, “Little house on the prairie”, and in the episode in depicted this lady called Mrs. Kezia in the episode “Cast Off”. She was an elderly lady who was a bit of a drifter and she stated that she had been moving around a lot her entire life. The problem was that she could never find a community to grant her as much compassion and love as she had given them. She didn’t exactly pass judgement on them, she merely stated the fact. In being different, she had been asked to leave every time and figured that it would never end. The Reverend didn’t want to ask her to leave. He had wanted to invite her into the congregation to be a part of the community. During the course of the 45 minute program, she healed Mr. Garvey’s back problem and taught the young children (who took her in faster than the rest) a lot of good morals to live by. Namely, when Laura kept casting off her dog in front of Kezia, you could see the pain in the woman’s eyes because she had much felt like that herself

The point of this particular blog is really quite simple. Why do we continue to cast off someone because they are different? Why do we, as Christians, wonder why so many people turn their back on Christianity? Mrs. Kezia did not turn her back on Christianity, as we see her kneeling to pray after everyone else went inside to for Sunday Morning service. She was called a heathen shortly before this, but the town had no idea that she was just as much a Christian (if not more so) than they. More times than not, judgement is passed on someone and we rarely take the time to get to know them as a person. Too quick are we to call them crazy or deem them not worthy of our time.

The moral of the story is to love, unconditionally, as we ought to. Love is the greatest gift there can be. If someone is different from you, well, just take a moment to get to know them because they can teach you more than you can imagine. A society so advanced in knowledge, yet we still forget the simple things as showing compassion for others. We are all guilty and while we’re here on this planet, maybe we can perhaps remember to see the world as a child. A child looks at such wonder at the beauty and past the differences. You don’t need a college degree or a six figure bank account to love. What you do need is compassion, understanding, and tolerance of those that are different.