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Always? Twenty-Four Hours? Ten Seconds?


Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”  (I Peter 3:8-12)

      Just in case he missed anyone, Peter sums up his teaching on this point. In many ways, what he says fits nicely with my commentary on my word of the day for yesterday: power. Power is not the goal. We're to live in harmony with others, which means working with, not against them. We're to feel with them. We're to love them, be compassionate and humble. We're not supposed to play king of the hill except in our blessing. 
          I have to wonder what would happen if for one day, people would keep their tongues from evil and their lips from deceitful speech. Jim Carey once played a character who wasn't able to lie for 24 hours. I never saw it, but have to assume the result was absolute chaos in his life. Given that he played a lawyer, the assumption is that it destroyed his legal practice, but given that it was a comedy, it would have made him a better man. At least, that's my guess. One thing is for sure, if no one lied for 24 hours, the media and politicians would have very little to say. That would probably be true of the rest of us, too 
          Imagine, too, if for 24 hours, people did good and sought and pursued peace. We can't make the world take that challenge, but we can take it ourselves. We can refuse to repay evil with evil, to refuse to threaten those virtual people out there to "bring it on" so that we can show them what we're made of. We can refuse to put others down or otherwise insult them even in jest. We can choose to bless or do good to the people we meet. We can decide not to argue (we can? Oh dear....) or fight. We can choose to do good and seek peace. We can choose to tell the truth. If you can't last a whole day, how about lasting 10 seconds? Then 11 the next time, and 12 the time after that.

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