The Personalist Project
http://www.thepersonalistproject.org/home/comments/encouragement
Accessed on September 21, 2023 - 5:46:42
Here are some possible basic attitudes toward another person's moral being (or our own):
1) Accuser. The accuser looks for evil and points it out, highlights it, draws attention to it.
2) Indifferentist. The indifferentist doesn't much care about the moral being of others or self and doesn't pay it serious attention.
3) Critic. The critic dispassionately examines and analyzes, seeing good and bad aspects, judging them in comparison with perfection.
4) Lover. The lover searches for "whatever is good" in another person—affirms it, delights in it, and magnifies it. The lover sees that good as the essential part, and the rest as comparatively unimportant.
From the point of view of Christian personalism—considering some basic truths of our existence as human persons—only the 4th is just.
I have in mind truths like these:
1) Each and every one is made in God's image and likeness, infinitely precious and valuable, and greatly loved by Him.
2) Each person is "an infinite abyss of personal existence" known fully only to God.
3) Each of us is made from love and for love. Without love we cannot thrive as persons.
As this new liturgical year begins, I'll be working at overcoming habits of unlove toward self and others.