What was all this obsession with enemies anyway. — Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we stopped labeling anyone with being an “enemy.” Certainly Ellison’s asks the right question, “What is this obsession all about?”
I have found that we gravitate toward calling someone or group as an enemy because we don’t know much about them or they choose not to know us. The more we know someone, we gather understanding about them, and we walk in their shoes, they become less of an enemy.
Jesus admonishes us to love our enemies so he recognized that enemies do exist, but if we love them we certainly want go around obsessing about them. Leaders sometimes try to get us to obsess about people who think, look, or act differently. Shame on them.
I am going to try to work on my language. If the word enemy disappears from my dialogue, maybe others will follow.
Well, I will try to at least supplant enemy with frenemy! Does that count as halfway!?!
Absolutely!