The Door Opens Inward

Thinking about thinking; reflecting on our beliefs; challenging ourselves about our certainty and what we take to be true; opening our minds to other, new, and even ‘wrong’ ways of perceiving, knowing and being—is there any reason to do this, anything to be gained from it? Is it ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to expand our consciousness, be more inclusive more tolerant, more willing to learn and experience differences? Or is better to close our minds, cling to the ‘rugged cross,’ wall ourselves in and fear what’s new and different and ‘other’ and change itself?

 

Thinking about thinking is uncomfortable and disruptive. It threatens our ‘secure’ ego identities. Things are hard enough without having to bother or worry about how and what I’m thinking! I’ve got work to do, people to see and places to go. I just can’t take the time to be bothered right now.  Maybe later.

 

But what if we as a race, the human race, understood that the door opens inward? What if we came to realize that to improve human and planetary welfare we need to modify some of our own attitudes and ways of thinking? What if the door really does open inward and we really do have to think about thinking and modify some of our own attitudes and ways of thinking; to take individual responsibility for what and how we’re thinking? What if we can begin to make things better by realizing we have to stop pushing on the door—blaming, proselytizing, punishing and legislating, looking at everyone and everything but our own hearts and minds because the door opens inward?

 

Ask: “Am I contributing to wholeness and a world that works for everyone and everything, or am I selfishly arrogantly insisting on ‘my way or the highway,’ that what’s right for me and people like me is right for everyone and everything? Am I blaming, punishing and finger pointing? Am I willing to listen, learn, discuss and compromise? Am I willing to entertain the idea that the one God in me is the same one God in you and in everything?”

 

If that’s true, if the one God in me is the same one God in you and in everything, then you and your ideas, needs and wants even if they’re different, ‘wrong’ and against the Bible, are as righteous as my own and as worthy of respect. Am I willing for the sake of our common humanity and contributing a world that works for everyone and everything, willing to think about my thinking and realize that the door opens inward to God?