“If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
~ Moshe Dayan
Look for ways to build bridges, find common ground, work together for the greater good, and express heartfelt love that penetrates hardness of heart and stimulates constructive conversation. Love can always find a way.
Yeah, that an important step. We should not only be willing to talk to your enemies but listen. I think it is a very difficult step in life to listen to an opposing view point and not give in to your principles, yet be willing to give what is necessary to create peace. That is really, for me, where the rubber meets the road testing one’s Christian Science and letting God lead the way.
Humility!
I know in my heart that what you are saying is based on principle. But I think it’s a bit difficult to talk to people whose intent it is to kill you, based on ideological reasons. I would love for you to give some specifics on how, for example, we can build bridges with ISIS and the radicals who would destroy Western civilization and actually anyone who opposes their ideology in the Mideast as well. I am sincerely needing some help in this matter. I don’t know how to pray about it.
Hi Grace,
You ask a great question, and one I’ve wrestled through to. If the other side “isn’t talking,” but only shooting and killing, then you have to take a different approach. You can start with pouring truth and love into consciousness like pouring hot water on a block of ice, and keep on pouring it until the block of ice starts to crack. At some point, the evil is going to give, retreat or not succeed. And there may be an opportunity eventually for some “talking” with the most hardened, but if there isn’t let God do the talking.
Hitler wouldn’t talk. But he ended up losing because he was on the wrong side of things. I don’t think the above quote is a hard and fast do it every time approach, but just a moral insight that breaks the mesmerism that argues you can’t talk to enemies on occasion and make progress.
This is great spiritual insight. God has a workable plan for every contingency,, but we have to be willing to listen to God first even when our thinking is getting hammered by really egregious aggressive mental suggestions. Divine Love is always the answer to every human difficulty.
“Love Your Enemies”
By Mary Baker Eddy – Miscellaneous Writings Pg. 8
“Who is thine enemy that thou shouldst love him? Is
it a creature or a thing outside thine own creation?
Can you see an enemy, except you first formulate this
enemy and then look upon the object of your own con‐
ception? What is it that harms you? Can height, or
depth, or any other creature separate you from the
Love that is omnipresent good, — that blesses infinitely
one and all?
Simply count your enemy to be that which defiles,
defaces, and dethrones the Christ-image that you should
reflect. Whatever purifies, sanctifies, and consecrates
human life, is not an enemy, however much we suffer in
the process. Shakespeare writes: “Sweet are the uses
of adversity.” Jesus said: “Blessed are ye, when men
shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all
manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake; . . .
for so persecuted they the prophets which were before
you.”
I have read and thought about these words many times over the years. It has always seemed a huge task to love my enemies, yet I naturally respond to her wisdom, her amazing insight,
so I endeavor to understand how to do this, to apply her ideas as I can, glimpsing that there really is no “out there” to consciousness. My enemy is within reach of the change of thought I know I need about them.
And her third paragraph is so profound! We need to preserve the Christliness that makes up our true identity, to not allow it to be defiled by…anything! A big challenge, indeed, but the gauntlet has been thrown down, and who but students of Christian Science are truly equipped to handle some of the enemies in the world thought today??
Evan and Spiritview Fan: Thank you ever so much….your comments are so helpful. I am reminded of Mrs. Eddy’s statement that Christian Scientists have enlisted to lessen sin, disease, and death (sorry, not an exact quote). As you said, Spiritview Fan, a big challenge indeed…but yes, we are equipped if we take up the challenge. And we must! I’m inspired now instead of overwhelmed. Thank you both!
I enjoy this blog so much, but I don’t always take the time to express my appreciation. So I just wanted to express today how much I appreciate, each day, the original posting by Evan and everyone that takes the time to share their insights!!! Wow! What great “daily bread” we both receive and share through this blog!
Thank you Brian! Your gratitude and contribution is appreciated.
About the photo of the 2 hands; I read somexhere that the origin of the handshake was that each party was to show that he was not holding a weapon, probably a knife.
This whole post raises an enormous question, one I have to deal with every day it wold seem, living in a country where Islam is very vocal and hatred of the West is very strong in extemist circles. ISIS doesn’t come sith open hands–they have clenched fists and have no interest in talking or listening. For them that is merely weakness on our part.
However.
In the Charlie attacks i was of course horrified for the victims but I also sensed I had to feel compassion for the perpetrators, because to have such a twisted vue of religion that you get to the point where you can do and even glorify yourself in such a thing, means you really need compassion. And healing. However their healing will have to be worked out with God at some time, and all we can do now is be sure that we do not”permit any man so narrow and degrade our soul as to make us hate him” (paraphrased from Booker T. Washington). And surely taking this stand for peace will radiate outwards and touch others. “May I be the change I wish to see in the world.”
Thanks Evan for this reminder and to all for your sharing. Striving to demonstrate that the only presence is God and His image and likeness is continuously teaching me a lot and blessing me with a step by step wise move. One lesson I have learned is separating the evil done from the individual. I’ve learned that the answer to this question of mine before: How is it that God loves us both equally when it is very clear that this somebody cheated me and others…? [dishonesty]. After praying to God to teach me how to reflect Love the answer came this way; God loves you both equally in the sense that His love is not measured by anything on earth but He loves TO GUIDE you both tO DO RIGHTEOUSNESS or to express goodness. I really was so satisfied with the answer. Now I am seeing the other’s move is in conformity with this verse, “All things work together for good to them that love God…” [It is helpful on my part.] It’s not easy to explain the situation I am facing right now but I hope to come back to this page and give a better fruitful comment “when the smoke of battle clears away…”, but what is vital in every situation is to keep listening to God for guidance.
This is extremely hard to do BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE, when you’re able to separate the evil from the person and only behold the good. This can only be done through the system of CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. That doesn’t mean that non-CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS can’t experience the above. Take Malala Yousefy, the teenager from Pakistan who survived from a gunshot to her head. She naturally knew instinctively that her life was of God and not a mortal, as instinctively as a Flower knows to bend itself toward the Sun for Life and not the shade. The same as those who lived through the HOLOCAUSE, who instinctively knew that burning in an oven couldn’t hurt them, like the 3 men who was thrown in the burning furnace as read in Daniel. They didn’t have S&H by MBE. SO GOD SHOULD NOT BE LIMITED as other systems of religion limits God.
If we see others as being spiritually minded, then, we do not have enemies.