My brother used to work within the prison system. (Well, that's the reason he gave for being in prison every day, anyway!)
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He once described a long-term, serious offender imprisoned on charges of armed hold-up: the offender needed extensive dental work but resisted having it carried out.
“Why?” my brother asked him.
“Because I'm afraid of having needles,” the hold-up man replied.
What an astounding irony!
With criminal bluff, bluster and bravado, a man who traumatised some unfortunate individuals by demanding that they face the working end of his gun confessed to fear of being pricked by a dentist’s needle!
Reflecting upon it, however, I considered that this scenario isn’t as rare as I, at first, thought.
Don’t we all, at some time, ask or expect others to receive from our hand (or more likely, receive from our tongue!) some treatment so ghastly that it would be beyond our own limits and abilities to comfortably tolerate it?
When I was young, it was called the Golden Rule: “Treat others the way you would wish them to treat you”. There’s nothing particularly profound about this wisdom; it’s just plain, basic decency. But, regrettably, it’s only sometimes in evidence.
It’s highly unlikely that your sin against another will be an armed hold-up, but your sin may relate to how you spoke to someone, or treated them; to the way you ignored their need, ridiculed them, poked fun at them or, arrogantly, inwardly thought them inferior to yourself.
Honestly, now: how would you feel about being treated the way you’ve treated others?
Indeed, what would the world be like if everyone dealt with people as you do?
bstewart@ispdr.net.au