Love your enemeies

   " We shouldn't wish divine judgment on any person or nation, even if it appears good and necessary. We should wish them God's shalom. When you imagine that God hates all the people you hate, then you can be sure you've created him in your own image. No, said the German pastor Martin Niemoeller, who was also imprisoned by Hitler for eight years, "It took me a long time to learn that God is not the enemy of my enemies; he's not even the enemy of his own enemies."

           What we should wish for every person and nation comes from this week's epistle. Paul borrows a passage from the Hebrew Old Testament to instruct the earliest followers of Jesus: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Romans 13:9 = Leviticus 19:18). The only debt we should carry, he says, is the never-ending debt to "love your fellow human being." Loving your neighbor fulfills any and every other divine command, for genuine love "does no harm to its neighbor." We're to love not only our neighbor but even our enemy (Matt. 5:43–48)."

http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20110829JJ.shtml

Ring any bells St Paul?!

`Of course it is,' said the Queen, `what would you have it?' Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying `Faster! Faster!' but Alice felt she could not go faster, thought she had not breath left to say so., The most curious part was: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. Just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy. The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, `You may rest a little now.' Alice looked round her in great surprise. `Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!'


`Well, in our country,' said Alice, still panting a little, `you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.'

`A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. `Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'



Louis Carroll Through the Looking Glass Chapter II