Get along with everybody?

I'm not really sure how to start out this blog entry, other than "hey, I've been thinking about something recently, and I just thought I'd share." So...

Hey, I've been thinking about something recently, and I just thought I'd share. It kinda started when the other day I was with a friend of mine, and he started almost making fun of someone else that I knew. Someone I'd just met, in fact. The person I was talking to didn't even know the person they were making fun of. They were just basing it off of a conversation they'd overheard. This kind of got to me, which I indicated to him. Later on, he realized what he was doing and said he was wrong - he didn't even know that person. But, I mean, I see this happen all the time, really. With everybody.

How often do we make fun of people? And I don't mean joking around with our friends to their face. I mean, how often do we see a friend do something or hear them say something, and two minutes later we're talking to another friend about it making fun of them? And it's not even just our friends - like in the instance I mentioned with people from work, this guy hadn't even met the person he was making fun of.

I know I'm super guilty of this, so I'm really just thinking about it and how I should be better about it, honestly. What everyone else does is up to them, but I've probably seen pretty much everyone do it at some point - it's a pretty common thing. Why do we do that? We think other people are weird and do things that are stupid, but why do we go around all the time talking about them when we think this? It probably shouldn't be said unless it's something we're willing to tell them to their face. And how weird are they really? I've always said that "normal is relative". There's no such thing as normal, really, so doesn't that make us all pretty weird? We've all got freaky things that we do on some occasion.

These thoughts came back to mind last night when I went to my house church and we were reading Romans 12. I volunteered to read, and although it was different, I think everyone really liked The Message when I read from it. Here's some of what was in it that got me to thinking about this more:

Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath.

Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody.

Don't hit back; discover beauty in everyone.

If you've got it in you, get along with everybody.

*****

"Make friends with nobodies."
"Discover beauty in everyone."
"Get along with everybody."

I may not always be good at it, but I really try to do this. I've talked several times about my theory that because we're "created in God's image", everyone has some different quality or likeness of God in them. And not getting to know people causes us to miss out on a part of God that it would have been really good for us to see. I don't want to miss out on that. Every person I meet that I really have an opportunity to get to know, I try to take that opportunity. I try to realize that everyone has their weird things about them, but that doesn't mean we can't find value in knowing them. I guess that's why I have such a wide spectrum of people that I call "friend". I get comments sometimes about having interesting friends. ;)

But I think I can honestly say that I've learned something from all of my friends. There are insights that I've gotten just from knowing people and seeing what they do and who they are that I might not have thought about if I'd never met or gotten to know them. And my hope is that they can all say the same thing about me... :)

Just more food for thought.