“When you visualized a man or woman carefully, you could always begin to feel pity — that was a quality God’s image carried with it. When you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination.” ~ “The Power and The Glory” by Graham Greene

I have often observed how hard it can be for people – and often particularly God’s people – to get past the sin and ugliness and abrasiveness of people to see the image bearing man or woman God created them to be.  I think that “a failure of imagination” is probably just the right accounting of the problem.  When I was growing up my mom used to look at someone who had fallen on the way of life and say, “there but for the grace of God go I.”  Continue reading ““Hate was just a failure of imagination””