Love for All?

I am hypersensitive.  I know I’m not alone in my hypersensitivity in this regard, especially here in Palestine and around the world.  What I am fully aware of today and everyday is how critical females are of each other.  You can feel eyes on you, watching you, but not in a friendly way, but rather a critiquing, analytical way.   It’s frustrating to constantly worry about the looks you receive, especially in Palestine.  I am more sensitive here since foreigners automatically get more looks than locals, but the way feels look at other females is destroying our gender. 

Just imagine if all the women in the world used our natural abilities to love and take care of one another instead of judging?  If all women bonded together out of love, what would our world look like?  Do you think it would make a difference?  I do.  I think if the women of the world said something nice, instead of something caddy, to just one other woman each day we could slowly, but surely change the world.  We would be spreading love and appreciation of each other’s differences, rather than focusing on what so and so has or doesn’t have.  If the women of the world focused on similarities and accepted each other’s differences, we could possibly influence the world! 

There is a theory, known as Appreciative Inquiry, which is based on the assumptions that “people individually and collectively have unique gifts, skills and contributions to bring to life,” that “organizations are human social systems, sources of unlimited relational capacity, created and lived in language,” and that “the images we hold of the future are socially created and, once articulated, serve to guide individual and collective actions.”)  The theory is that by combining appreciation, whereby you recognize the “best in people and the world around us,” which gives people a feeling of love and self-worth.  As women, we could start appreciating each other’s unique qualities and style and by doing so we can increase the positive energy that our world needs.  And if we all apply the dimension of inquiry, not fake “oh how are you…blah blah,” but genuine curiosity about each other, then we live in a “state of unknowing, wonder and a willingness to learn,” thus expanding our worldly knowledge and increasing understanding for one another.   (http://www.positivechange.org/about-us/appreciative-inquiry.html 

I Corinthians 12: 4-14

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.  There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.  There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. 

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.  To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit,  to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,  to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.  All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

Just as a body, though one has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Leviticus 19:18

“Love your fellow man as yourself, I am God.”

From the Prophet Muhammad's sayings

A man walking along a path felt very thirsty. Reaching a well he descended into it, drank his fill and came up. Then he saw a dog with its tongue hanging out, trying to lick up mud to quench its thirst. The man saw that the dog was feeling the same thirst as he had felt so he went down into the well again and filled his shoe with water and gave the dog a drink. God forgave his sins for this action. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was asked: Messenger of God, are we rewarded for kindness towards animals? He said, there is a reward for kindness to every living thing.

As can be seen from the three Abrahamic quotes and sayings, the three religions all state that we should be loving and kind to other living beings.  I hope other women and people who read this take the time and think about how we treat each other and be an example for others by showing love and appreciation for others.

In the words of Mother Teresa, “there is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”  Instead of being critical of the looks I receive, I am going to try to not do the same to other women. I will love each person for their unique qualities and try to learn from each and every person I have the pleasure meeting.

May God's love be upon each of you!