…we often lightly pronounce sentence and form an idea about someone based upon… not even the knowledge of different facts of his biography, but much more often upon hearsay, conjecture, and our own opinions supported by nothing, yet influencing us so powerfully that we consider our opinions the sole and precise truth about one or another person. But this is not at all correct—not in 99 cases out of 100, but in all 100 cases. Therefore, if we speak about a negative, disagreeable, and suspicious relationship to a person, then we should definitely be speaking about our absence of love for him. And this absence, and even the very lack of desire to recognize it as a defect, says very much about our own selves. It says that we are far from the true Christian life.
After all, love for a person does not at all mean blindness and thoughtlessness; it does not at all mean some sort of self-deception. The loving person sees the inadequacies, vices, and weaknesses of another, but above all this observation stands another, higher knowledge—namely: that a human being is something immeasurably greater than the sum total of his vices, sins, and inadequacies. Every human being is a child of God, who unconditionally deserves love. And all the darkness that attacks him and is present in him, and is as if part of him, is only a part that to a greater or lesser degree influences the whole, but which does not have the ability to swallow him up irreversibly as long as he is still alive on the earth. Furthermore, the very fact that he abides in earthly life says that for him the story of the creation of his “personal eternity” is not yet finished, and the Lord is giving him time and the chance to take conscious steps toward a transformation of life. And the meaning of these steps is determined not even by deeds obvious to us humans, but by the power of good will, the conscious striving for God. The Lord alone can evaluate the true meaning of the heart’s striving in the context of all the circumstances—both inward and outward—of a person’s life, in the context of the difficulties that he has to overcome in his striving for God.
It would be better for us to be mistaken in thinking well of a person than to be mistaken in thinking poorly of him. Belief in the better in any case leaves a person with the chance to correct himself, even if he acted badly. That means a lot! And we do not sin by believing in what is better in a person, even if our hopes are seemingly unjustified. God also “believes” in that person and works with all His might to help effect his correction….
- Father Dimitry Shishkin
