So, I just got done listening to Ben Harper's song: Burn One Down. The song is about weed, mary-ja-wanna, reefer, whatever you choose to call it. Anyhow, there's a line in there that stood out to me, it says, "so before you knock it, try it first." Now, I'm not actually telling people to smoke weed. Actually my comment has nothing to do with the drug at all. It just got me thinking a little bit, a catapult for my thought process, if you will.
I wish there was one really great, simple line I could give that would sum up my thought but I can't seem to come up with one... I guess if I did it would be something on the order of, "don't knock an action, till you know the intention."
The other day a friend of mine had mentioned that sinning is easier when you're not alone... and I totally agree with that. It IS so much easier to be bad when you have someone else with you... someone warranting your desires and actions.
This friend went on to use an example of party-animal, high school kids, and how when a new person comes along they congregate to them. Their goal being, lets get someone else to be bad and warrant our actions, so we don't feel so bad about them.
Now, maybe in Utah, because there are so many members of the church, this is true... I don't know. I can only speak from experience, and my experience is outside of Utah, and around very few LDS people.
As a party-animal, high school kid, I can say from personal experience, this was not the intention behind my actions. I simply wanted them to feel welcome and I knew that I had the ability to help them make friends.
Now this is just a small example, but how often DO we judge people's intentions because we disagree with their lifestyle choices?
Anyhow, I hope someday, when we have kids, we can teach them to love everybody... party-animal or not... I hope we can teach them to make good judgement calls, but to hold judgements. To accept everyone, while still holding tight to their own spiritual beliefs. I think for many adults its a fine line that's hard to walk... They fall too far to one side or the other... I just hope we can create such balance in our future generations.
Anyhow, if you want to hear an amazing artist, and the song that inspired this little post, here it is:
