Do you keep a list of people who have hurt you? This doesn’t have to be a formal database with you as the administrator. Who can resist keeping accounts of wrongs suffered, and who has inflicted them? Do you also keep a list of those you have hurt? Most people are much more lax in attending to this. Are you aware of who should be on the list? They are. You could view this as an indicator of spiritual maturity. You start out aware of your own concerns. The more you advance the more you expand your circle of awareness to include the viewpoints of others.

Have you heard of certain things referred to as acts of God? What do these usually consist of? Floods, earthquakes, extreme storms and other things that cause devastation? Do you hear of anything else referred to as an act of God? This may be a convenient approach in a legal sense where blame cannot be assigned to an individual, but this approach appears to give me an undeserved bad reputation. Are you willing to use this concept and terminology in a positive sense as well? What benevolent things are you willing to attribute to me? Is there anything that could be excluded?

Do you think of productive time as time spent making money? But you do necessary and worthwhile things that do not produce an income. So there can be value in non-monetary activities. What about rest? You know that you can’t survive without sleep, and the fact that I created the day and the night is a recognition of this. What about play? You can argue that this is not productive, but nearly everyone does it. Do you admire those few who do not as having superior lives to those who do? Play for adults is more often referred to as recreation. Does your time of recreation re-create you?

Do you believe in toleration? This was not always prevalent. In times past it was considered normal to attack and dominate those who disagreed with you, even to the point of violent bloodshed and torment. So it was progress to accept the idea that you could live in peace with those who disagreed with you. Does this still leave room for improvement? Toleration implies indifference. Can you go beyond toleration to the point of active engagement with those with whom you have differences, and do it in a cordial and respectful way? What else would it mean to love your enemies?