"Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?
And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet."Ezekiel 34:18-19
This is an interesting comparison of ourselves and our society to cattle. Not only do we get the best pasture and watering, but we want to ruin it for all the rest of the cattle. It sound like another problem that the Lord mentions in other scriptures... that we persist in thinking that we are better than one another. We love it when we get the best, but we feel like it isn't as good if everyone gets the best. It has to be exclusive.
I wonder what the solution is to that. Obviously part of it is learning to love, changing our attitudes, etc., but it seems really firmly engrained. We have a hard time rejoicing with other people sometimes, and the farther they are from our inner circle, the harder it seems to be for us. We have ideas of who fits and who doesn't, and who is part of our circle and who is outside it. And at some level of distance, we so often talk ourselves into not feeling compassion or not identifying with those others. Maybe it is people outside our families, or wards, or countries, or religion, or lifestyle preference, or societal level. But whatever it is, maybe we need to think about our similarity to these cattle, and how we can foul the waters for other people. And try not to, right?
Today, let's work on being inclusive and welcoming, and loving, and on doing whatever we can to share our bounty.
And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet."Ezekiel 34:18-19
This is an interesting comparison of ourselves and our society to cattle. Not only do we get the best pasture and watering, but we want to ruin it for all the rest of the cattle. It sound like another problem that the Lord mentions in other scriptures... that we persist in thinking that we are better than one another. We love it when we get the best, but we feel like it isn't as good if everyone gets the best. It has to be exclusive.
I wonder what the solution is to that. Obviously part of it is learning to love, changing our attitudes, etc., but it seems really firmly engrained. We have a hard time rejoicing with other people sometimes, and the farther they are from our inner circle, the harder it seems to be for us. We have ideas of who fits and who doesn't, and who is part of our circle and who is outside it. And at some level of distance, we so often talk ourselves into not feeling compassion or not identifying with those others. Maybe it is people outside our families, or wards, or countries, or religion, or lifestyle preference, or societal level. But whatever it is, maybe we need to think about our similarity to these cattle, and how we can foul the waters for other people. And try not to, right?
Today, let's work on being inclusive and welcoming, and loving, and on doing whatever we can to share our bounty.
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