I have a little ditty that uses the old Kennel Ration commercial, “My dog’s better than your dog” tune, but I’ll not inflict it on you now.
The point, though? Different does not necessarily mean better. We are all different from the skin all the way to the bone and blood and meat and sinew, heart and soul. Different in composition, talents, abilities, outlook, desire, understanding, etc.
We are also all the same in many ways. Some of the most important ways we are the same include that we all have the same opportunities while at the same time we all have different opportunities.
*huh?!?*
Let me repeat that.
We all have the same opportunities while at the same time we all have different opportunities. We all have the opportunity to choose to be useful. We all have different opportunities (and different kinds of opporunities) to be useful. Some, sadly, choose to be useful in the least positive way, viz.,
“If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning”–Catherine Aird
And remember,
Of course, the graphic and attendant caption misses the simple fact that there can be many uses for such a distorted, mangled tool, but of course, none of those uses fit within its original design parameters…
Another opportunity that everyone has is the opportunity to be just. Everyone can choose to be fair in dealing with others… or to be hypocritical, applying standards–if any–differently to different classes of people: the very essence of unjust behavior.
“Those children are noisy and rude, while my children [who are engaging in exactly the same behavior] are simply being [enthusiastic, exuberant, creative–pick your own fav hypocritical lie].”
All of us have the opportunity to choose to be grateful… or to be whiners. If you’re alive, know that you don’t deserve to be. It’s a gift. Start there. I like the way Joe Sobran put it,
As one of the characters in Lear tells his father: “Thy life’s a miracle.” Of whom is that not true?
The more we reflect on the sheer oddity of our very existence and, in addition, of our eligibility for salvation, the deeper our gratitude must be. Amazing grace indeed! To call it astounding is to express the matter feebly. Why me? How on earth could I ever have deserved this, the promise of eternal joy?
And given all this, in comparison with which winning the greatest lottery in the world is just a minor fluke, how can I dare to sin again, or to be anything less than a saint for the rest of my life?
I suppose I could continue, but you get my drift, I trust. I’ll leave the other ways we are “the same” (and different in ways that make little difference at all, really… and all the difference in the world, as well) as an exercise for the reader.
