Endigar 583 ~ True Tolerance
From the Daily Reflections of October 22;
Finally, we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means. (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 92)
The thought occurred to me that all people are emotionally ill to some extent. How could we not be? Who among us is spiritually perfect? Who among us is physically perfect? How could any of us be emotionally perfect? Therefore, what else are we to do but bear with one another and treat each other as we would be treated in similar circumstances? That is what love really is.
END OF QUOTE
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For me, the worst thing about death of some one loved is the dismissal of significance. When my mother died in 2006, the significance of who she is was relinquished to the vault of memory. I found it unbearable to take during a time when my faith in anything beyond organic life was gone. In the funeral procession, I was crushed by the weight of loss of this important connection in my life. Then I saw that a man driving a log truck had pulled over to the side of the road, and I looked to see that he had dismounted his vehicle and stood outside with his hat off and hand over his heart. His face is forever burned in my mind. He gave to me what no religion could. His respect transferred dignity to my mother.
Real love is the assertion of the significance of life. Dignity is what we do to embrace our own lives. Respect is what we do to give significance to others. Love is connection which enables the growing vulnerable of intimacy. Love is the strength of heart to interact; it is courage. It is the opposite of apathy. Tolerance as expressed here is not the absence of revulsion. It is the very active search and investment in the value of one another.
What if this universal illness that makes us frequently wrong is something the Infinite One created to be overcome? What if perfection is the way of Angels, but not the way of God? What if God is both infinite order and infinite chaos? What if God conspires to have a race of beings who can embrace the universal order, as do the angels (if you believe such), and the universal chaos? What if our treatment of one another is a demonstration of our spiritual romance with Gomu? What if God never wanted a perfect people, but instead hungered for ones who knew what it meant to overcome imperfections of all sorts?
Regardless of the what ifs, we are all in this together and are more powerful together than a part. The closer we are to one another, the closer we are to the center of the circle.
Daily Reprieve 
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