Love & Prejudice

A few days ago, I realized that I love D.  I should be joyous.  But what does that mean? I don't know.  I know that I am not "in love" - you know, the feeling you get when you know that you are bound to someone.  I don't have that feeling yet.  And  I know why...

D has many great qualities, but he is blatantly intolerant of those unlike him.  I know many people like him.  Some are in my family and I love them, yet it bothers me.  I understand that we all are intolerant of someone, of some thing.  I understand that I am not perfect. 

So, my request of him is that he not use derogatory language in my presence.  I don't find it funny, I find it unacceptable.  And because I have asked him to stop & he hasn't I feel as if my needs do not make a difference to him.  That isn't acceptable to me.  Love or no love...

When I was a child people treated me badly because I was Black, because I was fat, because I had (and still have) crooked teeth, because my family was far from perfect (I didn't know that no one's family was perfect), because I was smart (yes - & now I am happy and proud to say that!), because I didn't have "pretty" hair or "nice" skin, whatever in God's name "pretty" and "nice" means.  Perhaps the worst thing that I experienced was predjudice.  And for as long as I remember I remember thinking, and believeing that I would never be one of those people who was persecuted and becomes the persecutor. 

D's prejudice is 'socially acceptable' amongst most people - but not by me.  The theory that "God didn't make them that way" holds no water with me.  While I believe in God, I have learned with time that there is so much on this earth that I don't understand so I don't presume to know what God's intent was... but I digress...

The reality is that prejudice is hurtful.  In a word, it is mean.

A few days have gone by since I started this post.  I have had the opportunity to speak with a friend who is married to a man who shares this same prejudice, and she like me thinks that all prejudice is wrong.  What she told me after an afternoon of quiche & wine was that as powerful as the words of hate are, the words of love are 10,000 times more powerful.

I am still uneasy.  Still confused.  Still don't like any kind of acceptable prejudice.  Not sure what the next turn should be.

But D is out of town for work for a few days so I have some time to think... and to pray.  And Think & Pray I will do.