Every day I am in a constant demand, by the society I live in, to accept the people around me. After having an interesting conversation with one of my racial mixed friends, I decided to finally write this blog. Here are my thoughts on accepting and tolerating the people around me.
With all the recent events happening around the globe, lately, sometimes I feel suppressed (and I’m not talking about Donald Trump). Suppressed and suffocated by the society that I live in to be as progressive as I can be. To be all-accepting. To understand everyone. To embrace every religion. To understand that there are several ways to get to Heaven, or maybe none at all. To find an excuse for every sick and crazy man who commits a crime. Find him or her a context for the poor decision they took. To love every Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu and accept all their dogmas. To allow all the refugees in my country. To support gay marriage. To keep my opinions to myself, because you have to accept everyone’s opinion. To support equality between men and women. To fight along with the feminist current. To understand that black lives matter. To understand that Asian lives matter. I am dragged in all this mess of life concepts that we’ve all embraced, as humanity. Just as my college’s motto states (which ironically or not, is a Bible verse) „God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth”. And I have to accept it. Despite my own ideas.
1.
to take or receive (something offered); receive with approval or favor:
to accept a present; to accept a proposal.
2.
to agree or consent to; accede to:
to accept a treaty; to accept an apology.
No people, no. I am here to state, against the current, that I don’t have to accept all of your opinions. As a person devoted to my Bible and my God, I believe and strongly agree that Jesus called me to love every human around me. I am no better than any of you in any aspect. But I do not have to accept all of your beliefs, no matter the subject. As harsh and shocking as it might sound, I am sorry Muslim people, I do not have to agree with your dogma. I am sorry gay people, I do not have to accept your homosexuality as normal. I am sorry, black/white/Asian etc. people, I don’t have to accept everything that your race embraces or your cultures imposes. I am sorry Christian people, I don’t have to accept any of your false teachings, or to cherry pick the Bible. I am sorry Republicans, I don’t have to love your candidate, who wants to kick me out of the country that allows me to pursue the education I want. I am sorry Democrats, for not accepting the democratic socialist concepts that your candidates want. I am sorry people of my own country, for not accepting to shut up in front of the Government. And the list can go on.
Any of the previous sentences doesn’t make me a bad Christian or a bad person. It doesn’t make me racist, sexist, conservative, too religious, or simply narrow-minded. It makes me human. A human who deserves not to be labeled with any of those tags, just because I do not agree with another person. It’s such a mainstream thing to know that we are free people. Why am I free? Because I can walk into a shop, capable of buying any kind of fruits, unlike my grandparents who lived in communism and couldn’t do so? Or am I rather starting to be less and less free as with each passing day, I run the risk of a bullet in my head for daring to say, for instance, that I’m a Christian?
1.
to allow the existence, presence, practice, or act of without prohibitionor hindrance; permit.
2.
to endure without repugnance; put up with.
I want to be able to tolerate the people around me, without having anyone condemning me for it. In fact, I wish that all people could understand the difference between these two strong words. It is the time to stop offering tolerance a bad connotation. I believe that if we live in this era, that has been wanted to be very open-minded, very eager to new experiences of all sorts and eager to spread love and peace around the globe, we should understand the power of words. Acceptance cannot be fully present in my everyday encounters with people. Simply because we are built to be so different and so unique. We were built to have so many different opinions and that’s the beauty of having such a complex mind that can create so many complex thoughts.
I do accept you. But maybe not always. And when I do not agree with you, I tolerate you. And that’s perfectly okay, because I love you. And I believe, that as a Christian I was called to love people no matter your concepts, life principles or beliefs. (As a matter of fact, I believe that all people were called to love each other.) But that is so different than what this society that we live in portrays as love. Somehow, they manage to put the equal sign between love and acceptance.
You are free to disagree with the fact, act or belief. And you are more than free to love the person. My Jesus hates sin. But my Jesus loves all humans. That enables me to disapprove with some people, but at the same time compels me to love them. If there is one universal truth, that we’re all tied to, that is that love is all that matters. And if there is another universal truth we all accept is that we’re all human beings. And that it all that matters.
So tonight I’ll go to bed, praying for the entire humanity. Praying for everyone (including Trump), not just for France or the Middle-East… Because I am called to love the people around me.