Inner Markings

We are all different.  Sometimes the differences are miniscule, subtle, and insignificant.  It is also true that the differences can be quite significant, polarizing, and as far apart as the east is from the west.  The trick is to live with others in such a way that what is extremely different and polarizing is not acrimonious and divisive.  The world is too small and time is too precious to allow such to happen; yet, we seem to be living in a day when civil conversation and respectful listening are in short supply. More than ever we need to see each other as we are and not as we pretend to be.  

Who we are is a child and creation of the Creator of the universe.  We are all conceived and born with the markings of the divine upon us.  Each one of us has within us the essence of the Creator God who made us.  Just before the seventh day dawns in the order of creation, the author of the Scripture pauses in a moment of reflection and says, "God saw everything He had made, and indeed, it was very good."  (Genesis 1:31).  On other days the concluding word was "It was good," (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25).  In verse 25 after the creation brought that life giving eternal light into humankind, the word is not "good," but "very good."     

We are a part of the creation which God saw as very good.  Everyone we meet regardless of how they look, or how different their values are those who bear the essence of God.  When our conversation or our relationship seems to be getting frayed and impossible, it is good to remember that we all share a common point of origin.  It is good to remember that we are loved by the same God.  Even as we do not throw away family members because they have different views than us, neither can we thrown away some acquaintance, or stranger, or friend simply because their outward markings are different than ours.  It is not the outward markings that count, but the inner one which declare "this one bears the essence of God."