I watched a movie today that I had seen several times before, so there was no surprise coming at any point for me. As I watched people doing things that made them seem mean, harsh, unforgiving and unlikeable, I thought of them as the good people that they would turn out to be later in the movie when circumstances changed. I knew that an unexpected turn of events was going to soften their hearts and allow them to see their needy neighbor as someone worthy of their compassion and assistance, not their scorn. I knew they would turn out to be caring neighbors, not just greedy, selfish businessmen and women who refused to extend credit to a single mother with a sick child. I knew that their excuses of hard times and survival of the fittest would cease when they came to see her as a caring, hard-working, inventive young woman instead of a penniless beggar. I waited with happy anticipation for the moment when they would, one by one, learn that she had given from her meager means to help a stranger, even while facing losing her ranch just one year after her husband had died. I enjoy seeing those who denied her any kind of help start to offer assistance and reach out, not only to this poor mother but to other neighbors as well, with a renewed sense of community.
As the movie ended, I realized that it would be wonderful if I could see people I deal with in my everyday life the way I saw those people in the beginning of the movie. I don’t know what will happen to make people change their harsh ways. It’s impossible to know when someone’s heart will be softened and undergo a change, but I do believe that most people have the good part of their personality surface at some point in their life. It may then remain as the controlling power over their actions, or it may only make a fleeting appearance. The important thing for me is to remember that all have that goodness in them because we are all children of God. Some just do a better job than others of allowing that goodness to guide the way we treat our brothers and sisters.
Not knowing when anyone’s goodness will come to light, I wish that I could always think of everyone as who they will be when that happens, just as I did when watching the beginning of that movie. I would like to be able to forgive them their meanness even as it’s happening, because I know that at some point in eternity they will be wonderfully loving. It would be incredibly liberating to be able to see everyone as who they will be once they realize who they really are and learn how to live up to their divine potential, seeing each person as who they are eventually going to become. That is how I want to see my family, friends and neighbors and even the strangers who cross my path.
Unfortunately I haven’t seen the movie of this life before. So I have to rely on faith in accepting that there is good in all of us because we are all God’s children. With that faith, I can love and forgive and leave vengeance and punishment where it belongs, in the Lord’s hands. I have been working for some time now on forgiving quickly and not judging. What I realized today is that those two things come together and are easier to do when I think of others as they someday will be, not as they are now.
