Disagreement Doesn't make you ineligible for compassion

​I used to hate me. A lot. Way more than I can still come to hate myself at times today. At the heart of that hate was choices I'd made in my life.

Despicable and destructive choices, some would likely call them.

I was a thief. A master manipulator. An abuser and a drunk and a keeper of many other secret compulsions that I'm not proud of. So if you have any confusion how one could feel such hatred toward oneself, maybe you are fortunate enough to have escaped some of the labels I've lived with in my life.

Labels, I own, that were created by my own choices.

Or, at least, mostly my own choices.

I've done a lot of work on my life the last then years. What I've discovered most is choices aren't made in a vacuum. Often, choices are a reflection of our past as much as, if not more than, a snapshot of our present.

I've discovered the abused are more likely to abuse. The hurting are more likely to seek relief wherever they can get it, and they will steal from friends and family to support that relief if necessary.

Some will say I am making excuses for my choices. I understand that, but I can't afford to look at it that way. Because learning to love myself has come not from finding good excuses for my choices, but through having compassion for the stories beneath them. That has also been the pathway to learning to love others the way I so deeply long to love others.

We are in a political season defined by an opposite set of choices. We can be led to believe that by aligning with and supporting our side of the choices, we are ineligible to feel compassion and understanding for the other side.

That is a myth in my world.

This is not the first political divide of the ages. Not even close to the most divisive. The chosen leader of my life, Jesus, the one I long to live like and love like and offer compassion like, he got caught up in a political battle. It got so fierce that the other side of his battle made the divisive choice to crucify him.

I am sure Jesus was not supportive of the Roman choices, especially as he endured the final hours of the excruciating pain of the nails in his hands and in his feet. Yet, with some of his final breaths, with his final words, Jesus forced out, "father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

With his final words, Jesus offered understanding and compassion for the other side.

With his final words, Jesus showed us an example of how to have a very different opinion with a very different kind of love.

With his final words, Jesus offered me a reminder I lean into often. A reminder that he is always looking upon me, upon choices that might disgust others and myself, but a disgust Jesus breezes through undeterred with love and understanding and compassion.

Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Compassion.

Understanding.

Love.

I have voted for Kamala Harris. I am proud of that choice.

And at the same time, I can't bring myself to feel the least bit of disgust or hatred or callousness toward those who have or will vote differently than me. And more than being just proud of that, those words brings me to tears.

Because that is not a choice. That is not a decision. That is not a following of a commandment. That is instinct built on years of chasing a desire to instinctually love myself and others like Jesus loves me, which is truly the only meaningful goal I have left in this life.

An instinct that has been harder than hell to accept most of my life. Father forgive him, for he knows not what he does.

I am not there yet. I have a long way to go, but I'm getting there.

I am getting there under the direction of the king I elected into my life some 40 years ago. No other election, no other king or queen, no other external pressure will ever take precedence over that.

I understand others haven't chosen that same leadership, and even some that have see that leadership differently than I do. I am not trying to talk anyone out of or redirect any emotions anyone has in this very emotional season. But for those who may get to feeling guilty or misplaced because their love for one side doesn't translate to a disdain for the other, I see you.

I see you and honor the difficulty of that instinct.