I wonder if paradox is fourth dimensional? It seems to me when I meet anything that is unacceptable to my reasoning mind, if I find the paradox in it, I can wend my way to peace.
I remember not too long ago when there was much opining and editorializing about the State of South Carolina flying the Confederate flag over its capitol's dome. To so many people, the Confederate flag represented all the ugly, bad and evil of the Civil War, and there was much resistance to it, to the flag, in general.
In my opinion that flag (any flag in fact) doesn't represent anything in and of itself. It is a piece of material, that's all. Its only representation is in what a person brings to it, i.e., chooses to think about it. What we lay on it in our own mind is on us.
I thought then that another way of looking at the flag is: It was under that banner that so many were freed...don't be insulted, honor it, claim it as your own. Human nature being what it is, I can all but guarantee it wouldn't be flying over the state capital for long. There...you get the same result fighting about it gets you only without the fight...you wend your way to peace.
A friend of mine recently told me how angry she was at someone who asked her a question...an innocuous question, I thought. My friend was insulted, incensed and trying to figure out how to return the insult...without it being an insult, of course, because hers would be justified. I worked out in my own mind how the perceived insult could be perceived as a compliment...I didn't offer it up, because my friend was way into enjoying her angry hurt. And, I reminded me, other people's justified anger is usually nothing to the uninvolved others.
I like that my job is to learn (and then to remember) that how I interpret what I hear/see/think is my choice...that I get to choose resistance or acceptance. In other words, it is my own personal choice whether my mind lives at war or at peace.
Thank You.
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