Family Opinion

My family's opinion has always been very valuable to me. It's sometimes a problem though, when the entire body of family opinion is focused like a meson cannon upon a few key principles and doesn't bother with the rest. For some time now, I've actually thought of how the mending of a man's heart should be a moment for rejoicing regardless of context. The main problem is that not everyone thinks so. That's painful.

I think we should all be generous of spirit, regardless. People who have suffered a lot sometimes counter this argument by raising more and more outrageous examples (which sadly, are often true). Witness the intense and widespread suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust, for example. But most situations are not so dire, and that means that apart from extremes, we should honour the general principles of the human spirit: waste not, want not, weary not, wound not.

Sometimes, as is the case between the sons of Ishmael (firstborn of Abraham, in case people forget) and the sons of Isaac (the second, who was almost sacrificed), the divide is too deep to be bridged. The original situation was made untenable, and the foundations dissolved long ago. The only thing to do is to start afresh, not build from foundations which have crumbled. But the enmity between the bloodlines has become a meme, and those are difficult to erase as long as the collective heart of a people (or the collective hearts of two peoples, in this case) choose to actively remember and renew these things.

And who is to say that this is not the natural way of the world? Or that, sadly, we should ever be able to overcome it?