God lift from me the intolerable burden of my ignorance, arrogance, willful blindness, bitterness and resentment. As I pray that others rise above the same faults and temptations.
…There are terrible things under the surface of our society, and the perpetrators are coming for you and coming for us…
Are you concerning yourself with the dust in your enemy's eyes instead of attending to the filth that obscures your own sight?
Do we want accusation, suspicion, discord, derision and hatred?
Or the peace and prosperity and happiness that beckons to us at this moment, like never before.
Who's the enemy here?
Is it the basket of deplorables?
Is it the freaks and the queers?
Is it the plumbers and carpenters and tradesmen and managers who work honestly and diligently during the day? Or the soldiers who stalwartly defend the borders and protect us?
Is it the artists and visionaries whose expressions of unbridled creativity entertain and rejuvenate us and who continually offer to us an unending panoply of technological miracle?
Is it the institutions that guide and protect us that so many lived and died to erect and establish which for all their faults, have served us so well?
Do we want revenge or justice?
Do we want contempt or mercy?
Do we want war or peace?
And what are you aiming at in your heart of hearts?
I see even the best of men degenerating into the exchange of blows.
I see even the best of men identifying the enemy in our neighbors and friends.
I see even the best of men falling prey to cowardice and self-righteous anger.
It needs to stop.
I need to stop.
You need to stop, before it's too late.
Who is the enemy here?
The snake in your heart?
The lies on your tongue?
The arrogance of your intellect?
The cowardice of our refusal to see?
The enemy is that which divides to sow discord.
The enemy is the pride and the fear that stops us from lending a hand across the divide.
The enemy is the great and eternal adversary of mankind.
And if we demonize our brothers, our comrades-in-arms, do we not precisely call that dread spirit forth?
Have we not yet learned?
Courage.
Trust.
Truth.
Love.
Even unto your enemy, which is yourself.
God forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
May what is highest guide our vision.
May what is highest open our ears.
May what is highest guide our tongues.
And may we pray fearful of the hell we could so easily and carelessly create deliver us from evil.
Shine a light into the corners of our dark hearts.
For thine is the kingdom,
The power and the glory,
Forever and ever.
Amen
- Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Photo & art credit to Sharon McCutch, Jorge Gardener, Claudio Schwarz, Laura Vinck