“Human beings are glorious,” writer Sally Kohn reflected in her May 2018 In Style magazine article, How Meeting a Former White Supremacist Changed the Way I Understood Hate.
Ms. Kohn and I are on different ends of the spectrum in many beliefs, but I found this article a fascinating read, and also discovered that we, in fact, do have some similar beliefs.
Kohn, in illustrating her point about our gloriousness, shares this interesting tidbit: “the odds of each of us being born with our particular DNA structure to our particular parents is one in 400 trillion. That’s the mathematics of your uniqueness.”
Human beings are glorious! I couldn’t agree more.
I would add the caveat that preborn human beings are amazingly glorious. Is there nothing quite as fascinating as the growth and development of a child in the womb? That’s where it all begins. Glorious, indeed.
In her article, Kohn then proceeds to discuss our history of fighting about our human differences, and her experience of meeting a former white supremacist named Arno.
As she listened to him share his personal journey, Kohn admits that she was waiting for a place in his life story to lay blame for the path that he had taken as a white supremacist, like his parents and their upbringing, “But eventually I realized I could have been Arno’s parent, and in fact I could have been Arno—normal and kind and well-meaning enough but growing up in a country steeped in racism.”
It’s this very perspective that I often reflect upon regarding my pro-life beliefs and those who appear to be diametrically opposed to those views.
I realize that I could have been my grandmother, who forced the abortion on my birth mother. Her attitude towards abortion and her work as a nurse had to have been impacted by the legalization of abortion four years before I was conceived.
Just as Arno was shaped by “a country steeped in racism,” I have no doubt that my grandmother and countless others, no matter how “normal, kind and well-meaning enough” have embraced abortion on demand and without apology by living in a country steeped in abortion as a choice, a right, the prevailing law of the land.
And just as there’s no place for racism in our country, I would add that there’s no place for complete and utter disregard for the miracle of life that Kohn talks about, this incredible miracle that we share as human beings.
Like Kohn, I’ve also spent a fair share of my life choosing to love others, despite their differences in beliefs and experience from me, despite even their attempts to harm me, and encouraging others to love people similarly. And as Kohn identifies, we “get closer to the opposite of hate when we experience joy and generosity and connection.”
If you’re looking for a way to move past hating those who perform abortions or support abortion, experiencing joy, generosity and connection with other people, even those who you perceive as in opposition to you, is a great place to start. Maybe it’s a simple as connecting with them through prayer.
For more on Sally Kohn’s recently released book, The Opposite of Hate, or to read more from her article in In Style, visit (http://amp.instyle.com/news/sally-kohn-the-opposite-of-hate).
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