Train Tracks

There has been something weighing quite heavily on my mind lately. 

Perhaps it has to do with watching my dear kind, Father in Law lying in a hospital bed for weeks at a time while his body is shutting down, preparing him for a marvelous journey where he will return home to our Father in Heaven. He will be reunited with his sister, parents, etc.

Or perhaps, it has to do with the light that is being shined down on gay marriages, once again.

As I was driving home from taking Dean to work today, I thought about two important concepts. Love, and acceptance. My thoughts continued on.  I thought how they are separate, but how they must work collectively.

I pictured two parallel lines, perhaps serving as train tracks. One marked love, one marked acceptance.  If both lines are perfectly equal, they continue to provide a path for others to arrive to their destinations safely. Perhaps they are a vehicle in our own lives to travel on while we are on our homeward journey. Or perhaps, they need to be in place to provide a vehicle to others around us, who are lost or confused in their homeward journey.

But what happens if one of the tracks, whether it be love, or acceptance, falls short of the other one?Or, what happens when something breaks, and causes the lines to no longer to be parallel anymore, perhaps they become perpendicular. Then what happens? In both scenarios, a train wreck will happen.

I have heard many people say things such as, " I love my brother, but I can't accept the fact that he is gay"  But, how can we really love someone without accepting their total being? Can we just pick a piece off their body to love? That leaves an image of unwanted body parts flying around.  I believe that we can't love without accepting.  (You can insert anything in the above statement, I love my brother/neighbor whatever, but I can't accept the fact that he/she is this or participates in that, or sins in regards to this that or the other etc.)

People are so quick to judge others, they don't like the fact that there gay, or maybe of a different race,  have purple hair, maybe they face a terminal illness, infertility, or perhaps they are labeled as a criminal for something they did in there dark past.  But do we really have the authority to pass judgement on others? When we look in the mirror, are we perfect ourselves? Or do we have sins too? Maybe we are not murderers per say, maybe we are sinners by being prideful, hateful, speeding down the road, driving a car with expired registration, maybe we are not pure in our hearts, maybe we are addicted to hating others, for example the LGBTQ communities. And yes, I think people are often addicted to hating others, because it gives them a false sense of superiority.

Now, am I saying that we have to agree with the lifestyles, or trials those around us face? No, but we do have to simply accept them, after all, we can't control the world and change everything about others to fit our views of how everything should be, there would be no diversity if that were to occur, no trials to learn from, etc.

People often fill threatened by the way other people lives there lives, for example, same sex marriages. They feel like allowing same sex marriages will threaten their marriages, I'm not exactly sure how it will threaten another persons life.  We were not only granted one life to live? If we are so concerned about what other people are doing in their lives, are we living our life fully and happily,  or are we injecting poison into ourselves?

I think if we each had a set of train tracks were in good working order, with love, and acceptance labeled on each,  all of the world problems will be solved, and that everyone would get along, but  more importantly everyone will have peace and harmony in their own life's. I would even venture to say that by doing this we could cure many forms of mental illness. We are often so caught up in what other people are doing, we are not focusing on ourselves, allowing ourselves to be emotionally happy and healthy, instead we are just injecting poison into our hearts, causing our own selves to be the ones effected by negativity.

So, my rhetorical question for this post is: are you train tracks working? Do you accept those who face different challenges than you, along with loving them? If they are not working, is it the other person that you don't love and accept heading for a train wreck, or is it you? Are you addicting to hating others, if so, is your lifestyle of doing so positive and uplifting?