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Some of us are emotionally safe to be around, but others not so much. With respect to intentions, humans seem to come in three varieties: those who mean no harm, those who intend harm, and those who vacillate between the two. Nadine was among the harmless. “As they used to say in the ‘60s, make love, not war,” she told me.
Caught in the middle of a psychologically venomous family dispute, she struggled to be fair and compassionate toward the warring parties. Despite her best efforts, she managed to offend them all. How?
“Harmful people find harmless ones unnerving,” I suggested. “People who are full of hostility often insist you take sides, and if you remain passive or an instrument of peace, they label you an enemy too. In their minds, if you’re not with them, you’re against them.” This explains, in part, why mean-spirited types often turn on those who exhibit good will. To them, the very presence of folks like Nadine feels like a denial of their right to take it out on their perceived adversaries. After all, the mean-at-heart need to feel morally justified in their spitefulness.
“I can’t control what others do,” she concluded. “All I can do is make sure I don’t harbor ill will toward them.”
Nadine is a healing soul who embodies the attributes of a peacemaker. Ted is not.
Settle the Score
“I’m going to make him pay,” he proclaimed, referring to a college friend he believed stole his fiancé’s affection, leading to their break-up.
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“What do you hope to gain from that?” I asked.
“Satisfaction,” Ted snapped, his eyes steaming with acrimony.
]Unlike Nadine, this man meant harm and lots of it. He was intent on settling a score, hoping that doing so would salve his emotional pain and offset the sense of humiliation that bedeviled him. When wronged by another or by fate, each of us is capable of becoming dangerous, at least psychologically. Sometimes we are motivated by a twisted desire to pursue justice, despite overwhelming evidence the world is not and will never be a fair place.
For some of us, hostile intent is transitory, gradually ebbing as time distances us from our initial wounding. So, we need to distinguish folks who get angry over a transgression but never act on their vengeful impulses from those who willfully execute spiteful acts directed at their adversaries, real or imagined. Among the latter, harmful intent becomes permanent, and rancor toward a few individuals, if sustained long enough, expands to include people in general.
]Due to differences in innate temperament and developmental experiences, some folks are more predisposed to a harmful mindset than others. Many who turn malicious have been traumatized or victimized earlier in life, which, subconsciously, supports their self-justification for exacting revenge on others. The distinction between those who do and those who do not intend harm toward others is a spiritual one; not just mental. This moral divergence sharply separates those like Nadine from those akin to Ted.
If you are a person of peace, you may find it perplexing that some people invite hate into their souls and then consent to become its servants. But they are among us, and not just as extremists, terrorists or serial killers. More often than not, mean-spirited people attack others with words, callous indifference and social sabotage rather than with physical assault.
In our increasingly acrimonious world, it is quietly reassuring to recognize there are those who, even when offended, vilified and victimized, have the spiritual fortitude to forgive and to remain on the demanding path of compassion. Sure, there are iconic figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela and the like. However, most who choose love over hate, like Nadine, are ordinary folks swimming upstream day-by-day against the considerable power of division, enmity and hostility.
These are the peacemakers, and they truly are the blessed ones.
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