The Mission Field of Love

What color is love?

What is its gender?

Does it have an age?

Does it have a political affiliation?

Does it even have to be reserved for human beings?

Love can be bestowed upon everyone, or upon any living creature. For example, if you don’t get out much, and don’t know anyone, but you have a dog or cat, you be love for your four-legged companion.

That’s a no-brainer for most people. Especially people with pets. But here’s one that isn’t so obvious: the Internet.

The Internet is — to use a Christian term — a mission field that stretches, literally, around the world.

One way to be love is to not get embroiled in squabbles online. Don’t ramp up arguments to the point where Facebook friends react by blocking/banning other Facebook friends.

How do you do that? By not taking sides. By not drawing a line in the sand that says, in effect, “THIS is what I know to be true. YOUR way is wrong.” Doing that immediately bifurcates reality. It creates an us and them. My way, or your way. That’s where animosity begins.

You’ve seen it. The anger. The heated arguments in Facebook posts. There are some nasty people — who may not even be truly nasty offline, in person — who are trying so hard to make their ideological points that they lose the ability to be kind. It exists on both sides of the political aisle, too. I’ve seen “Liberals” who are extremely angry and bitter against those who don’t share their views. Likewise, I’ve seen “Conservatives” who are dead-sure those on the other side of the aisle are hastening America’s demise. The chasm between them seems too vast to be bridged.

Maybe it is. But it’s worth a try to bridge it. And one way to accomplish that is to keep only-love mind.

That means to be mindful of what you say and do in your world, where you are.

So if, where you are, is sitting in front of a computer, or standing in line with your smartphone in hand, you can practice only-love mind by keeping your fingers from typing words that divide, rather than unite.

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