Who Is Your Enemy? — Thomas Merton

A friend of mine posted a portion of this passage on her Facebook page. We had been talking recently about the reasons why we cannot stay silent, even when it seems like nobody cares or is listening. With all that is being done on local, state, federal, and international levels to divide people and create an us versus them mentality, it is sadly too easy to fall into that trap.

Thomas Merton’s words below offer a reminder and a challenge to act differently and consider the inter connectional nature of this world. I am thankful for her invitation to consider these words of Merton. I invite you, dear reader, to consider his invitation to think and act differently, especially in these difficult times.

Do not be too quick to assume your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels that you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you were capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy.

Do not be too quick to assume that your enemy is an enemy of God just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy precisely because he can find nothing in you that gives glory to God. Perhaps he fears you because he can find nothing in you of God’s love and God’s kindness and God’s patience and mercy and understanding of the weaknesses of men.

Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God, for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice, your mediocrity and materialism, your sensuality and selfishness that have killed his faith. — New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 177