Category Archives: Understanding Enemies frees us to Love them.
Intelligence and Smarts
Accepting that people who have lived different lives than you will want different things and will see the world differently helps you recognize that what look like debates are often just people with different life experiences talking over each other, unable to hear one another.
Henry Ford said, “If there is any one secret of success it lies in the ability to actually understand the other person’s point of view and be able to see things from their angle as well as your own.”
Since everyone has different needs and experiences, the only way to move forward and get things done is to tolerate and work with some views even when you disagree with them. If you think there is only one right answer to every problem, you will insist on banging through more debate until the other side agrees with you, often just cementing them into their position.
It takes smarts to accept that for most problems in the world, your idea of the “right” answer is the one that promotes your own wellbeing and fits your understanding of how the world works. But since everyone has different needs and experiences, the only way to move forward and get things done is to not only tolerate, but to work with some views even when you disagree with them. The outcome if you can do this is getting along with people you disagree with. It is indispensable.
People who understand various fields may be intelligent, but understanding how the world works requires smarts. Many people are knowledgeable in their field but are oblivious to how interconnected the world is and how foreign other peoples’ life experience may be to their own.
Often we buy into tribal thinking. That’s when if a person knows your opinion on one thing, they can pretty well tell how you will think on all others. Independent thinking frees us to agree with people on some topics but not others. Both agreeing or disagreeing on every topic with someone or some group indicates an unquestioned knee jerk reaction.
No matter how convinced you are of your truth, realize that the most powerful truth does no good if you can’t get people to listen enough to at least understand why you believe it.
The most successful people have an ability to express their ideas effectively even to people who tend to question or challenge them. Truth has to be seen in the context of life experience. It has to be fleshed out in ways different people can hear it. Often that starts with finding a point of agreement and going from there. But that takes you being open enough to find that point and also trying to understand what fears and life experiences block the other person from being able to hear you well enough to think independently.
Giving ideas a life context is a soft emotional skill. And it takes understanding why the other person thinks the way they do. Intelligence and smarts are not the same. But both are important.
( Eileen: A lot of this is from the context of an article by Morgan Housel. It’s a blend of my ideas and understanding of what he writes about the difference between and the importance of both intelligence and smarts.)
My Sermon from the Molehill
Reflections on David, God’s favorite, the ancestor of Jesus, and seemingly the most unlikely choice to fight a giant.
David reminds me of my Irish ancestors: he’s a fighter, a poet, a musician, a dancer, and a charismatic leader, who both loves and lusts. Love and lust are opposites. Love puts the other first. Lust uses the other. David actually loves Saul. To me the most amazing thing about David is that though Saul repeatedly tries to kill David out of jealousy, David continues trying to reconcile. Why? Because when David was just a youth, he often sat with this powerful man playing calming music when Saul was conflicted and overwhelmed by depression. David understood Saul. He knew his inner struggles that caused him to overreact. David finally had to turn against Saul, but he did not hate him. He was able to love someone who was violently and illogically against him because he understood him. And after decades of obeying God, when David sinned greatly and tragically, God taught him through consequences. But God still loved David tenderly and totally. Because God understands our humanity. The most fundamental and difficult challenge Christians face is to understand our enemies. We may be called to vote against them, but we are not called to hate or belittle them. We are called to love them and the only way we can do that is to understand them. And while that takes both caring and effort, what it mostly takes is humility. Jesus not only showed us it can be done, but he calls us to do it. We start by loving our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. In Jesus day, our neighbor was the person most like us. But Jesus also calls us to love the stranger, to even become vulnerable by inviting them into our safe place, our home. To top that, Jesus also began to call us to love others more than ourselves. That’s a whole other level of love. It’s the kind of love we reserve for our family. Finally, on his cross Jesus not only forgave his enemies, but he asked God to forgive them. Because he understood that they did not realize that what they were doing was evil.
Our Prayer: God, our Father, we are small, like David. We also have both strengths and weaknesses. Give us the grace we need to fight the enemy within us. Give us understanding of those we perceive as enemies outside us. Help all your children find a way to work together to bring about your kingdom, not ours, on earth as it is in Heaven. God, you are the source of our lives and the grace that sustains us. We praise you and give you thanks. We lift our hearts and minds to focus on you, so that we may see your glory and know your love with both heart and mind. We offer our lives to you in thanksgiving.
Laughter: Carbonated Grace 