There is no Unity without Humility

As I sit watching and listening to the arguments pro and con on so many issues swirling around our societal conscious, I’m left wondering, where is the love of our fellowman? Is it lost? And, if so, can we find it again?

Phileo in Greek means love toward our fellowman. That’s why the city of Philadelphia is called the “City of Brotherly Love”.  In English this word for brotherly love is called, “charity.” Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines charity as the benevolent good will and love toward our fellowman. So, do you have charity? And, if not, should it even matter?

With so many people struggling to achieve the rights they deem they are deserving of, there is an awakening happening right now across the land. Millions of people are coming to the realization that no matter what side of an issue we fall on, (the most powerful word in this sentence is we, made up of I’s), every person on planet earth desires to be loved and affirmed. We desire to be seen, to be heard and to be valued.

As individuals, we are longing for meaning, purpose and value in our lives and we are desperately searching for someone who will treat us with love. So what is keeping us from charity towards one another? I think a major role is our identity as a label instead of a human being.

We are not labels. No matter how proud you are of your self-defined identity, if you allow yourself to be reduced to a particular such as an identity label, than you will surely be treated like a label instead of a human being, who has a mind and a heart. When we don’t see each other as human beings with minds and hearts that desire to be loved and affirmed by others and given a sense of purpose and value, we allow others in places of power who may not share our label to place a value on us as people merely by placing value on our labels instead of our humanity.

You don’t have to look back too far in the pages of history to see when this happens, bad things happen. Let us not be like the priest or Levite who crossed the other side of the street when they saw the man bruised, battered and broken on the side of the street laying in his own blood, let us be the good Samaritan who didn’t look at a preconceived identity, but as a man, a human being.

Please take a moment and question how you see people. If you think of your label or other people’s label over the mind and heart, let’s stop doing it. This isn’t saying stop identifying what you believe, but strive to see people as you see yourself, just a mind and a heart who wants to be loved and affirmed and when we live this way, we won’t be divided by labels, but united by our love for one another. When this happens, we’ll stop fighting each other over labels, but love each other over our deep sense of charity.