We must be patient with our differences. Our best teachers are often the hardest to hear.

I am a woman of very strongly held perspectives. Anyone who has spent a meaningful amount of time with me can attest to that.

Knowing this, I try hard to make them well-founded perspectives. I devote time and energy to trying to become educated on the range of information behind a wide range of issues, and based on my understanding and experiences, develop what seems like the most likely “best guess” at a given time. I recognize that as a human being I can at best have a “best guess based on available understanding”, but I can get pretty passionate about those guesses.

I can also be pretty passionate in ways that may seem contradictory. I don’t self-identify too strongly with any one philosophical, religions, professional, or any other kind of cultural designation, so where I might be right in line with some groups’ perspectives on one thing, I may seem to be at polar opposites on another.  I think that’s a normal part of human diversity, but I’m especially aware of these apparent dichotomies in my own life.

It’s really tough to hit that point where the differences pop up. There’s something about hitting a wall of discordance where before there was harmony that feels like we’re being let down, perhaps a little betrayed. I’m not sure why. But there often comes to urge to stop listening to this person, stop talking, stop being friends. Even if everything until that point was serving a positive purpose in our lives, a strong enough difference can make it seem like it all was a bad mistake.

I’ve felt that urge, many times, even a couple of times today. There have even been times when I discovered something about someone that made me decide I should stop relying on them, or reduce or even end the time I spent with them or their ideas. But I try to remember to take a step back and consider whether this one point of disagreement betrays a basic flaw in their whole character, or if it just makes me uncomfortable or disappointed. I definitely try to be aware of whether it just makes me feel like my own positions are being challenged.

Challenges are what make us stronger, and this is especially true when facing challenging people. The greatest teachers in our lives are those who are difficult to listen to. We must learn not only to absorb and benefit from a new perspective, we must also learn to be flexible and forgiving with what we discover in ourselves.

That was a whole lot of words to try to simply say this: Just because we disagree on something, that is no reason to devalue all of the wonderful ways we add to one another’s lives. We must treasure those shared resonances, and in lovingkindness, forgive our differences.

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