Lately I’ve been trying to write and nothing original has been coming out of my thinker. So I’m going to write out some ideas from other people that have been on my mind lately.

I want to gather my scattered thoughts together the way a shepherd gathers his sheep together before travelling to a pasture in a distant land. I even want to bring the problematic ones that tend to take me on a wild goose chase. 

1. Christ is in our midst.

This one sentence changes everything for the one who believes. Christ is in our midst. Even some unbelievers who received a life review in a near death experience noticed that God was always there with them through the highest highs and the lowest lows. I guess Christ being ever-present depends on the perspective of the individual though. If you only see the Lover of Mankind as a judgemental ideal, then you will suffer because you won’t hold a candle to an infinitely bright Light. If your candle is in opposition to Love, it will melt as fast as it was lit. Similarly, many are indifferent, forgetful, and distracted…all of us are at times. We ignore a wealth of wisdom, peace, and mercy, choosing instead, to make a mess all by ourselves. But we don’t have to, we can simply remind ourselves that Christ is with us. In every conversation, in every temptation, in every disappointment. If we can remember that, even a quarter of the time, then conflict would start to vanish with love ready to fill its void. This is not only a great reminder for oneself, but you can also look for Christ in every person you interact with because he is there too. Both in and around them. Remembering He is with a suffering family member or friend is a great alternative to the despair and anxiety which comes naturally. Easier said than done, of course.

The response to the first statement is, “He is and ever shall be” … He is and ever shall be. He’s faithful, and he is not leaving us. Not now, not ever. He “will be with [us] until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). However, we take after Adam and Eve all the time. Shame-filled from our own doing, hiding like a hurt animal from Him who can heal us. Or not addressing the injury at all which does just as much harm, and allows the infection to spread. With humility and repentance, all of our self inflicted wounds can get washed out and renewed.

2. “Make yourself responsible for everything, and for all men.” -Dostoyevsky

Yesterday I heard an illustration of conflict resolution that I believe most reasonable people practice that can be summed up as: Own what is yours. After all, it takes two to have a fight. I agree with the willingness to take responsibility. But who are you to say you only contributed 14.25% to the problem. The entire amount is our responsibility despite the fact that it is not entirely our fault. Solving the needless suffering is more important than whether or not you piece off the sliver that “belongs” to you in order to sleep soundly at night. Taking more blame and responsibility is a noble thing to do when it is for the right reasons. Sticking up your hand and owning someone else’s mess because you love them is a beautiful line in many great movies and books.

Dostoyevsky speaks of doing this to the extreme. In Fr. Zosima’s speech, he relayed a story about his brother asking birds for forgiveness. On one hand that does sound genuinely absurd, but he defends this stance with the undeniable assertion that “all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would be happier at your side–a little happier, anyway–and children and all animals, if you were nobler than you are now” (The Brothers Karamazov).

The ripple effect in your action does not stop until all creation feels the force of the wave you unknowingly created, for better or for worse. Each of us is to blame for the state of the world, and for each other’s state. The work left to do is up to the individual…watch it burn, pour gasoline on the flames, or lastly, seek to heal the brokenness one loving act at a time…Making peace with others, even if it is to the extreme. Someone needs to counteract the extreme terrorists at the end of the day, and by Dostoyevsky’s line of thinking, we all do.