Tolerance, Truth, Trust, Turmoil

THIS POST IS AN EXCERPT FROM MY BOOK LETTERS FROM THE WAY

For the past few days, I have been grappling with questions around tolerance, truth, trust, and turmoil.

The four T’s symbolised so perfectly by the Tau symbol I see all around me at San Anton.

Tolerance

I am not sure that absolute freedom exists. Yet I know that when we practice perfect love we experience absolute freedom.

On the Camino where thousands walk together each year, we learn to walk in love, respect one another, and allow each other to be. In fact, we become more tolerant, but what happens when personal choice intersects with tolerance and conflict arises.

A few days ago, I saw that a famous friend of mine deleted a fan from his Facebook page because the fan commented on him being a FAG as he was partying with some gay friends. My friend, who is not gay, mentioned that he will not tolerate haters on his page and deleted the fan.

This led me to think about tolerance and a scenario developed in my mind. What if my friend left the hater on his page, openly advocated gay rights, continued to party with his friends, showed that there is nothing to be afraid of – would he win the hater over? There is a strong possibility that this would happen and an equally strong possibility that it would not.

I wrote on his wall and said “Dear boy OF COURSE YOU ARE A FAG! A Fabulous All-round Guy what’s wrong with that? Just like I’m a Fabulous All-round Girl, welcome to my world.”

If only becoming more tolerant were so flippant, frivolous, and easy.

The topic of tolerance is interesting as we often tolerate others with long-suffering. Alternatively, we also seem to be more intolerant as a society where in a world of addictive likes, should someone be a disliker they are banished eternally from our small worlds.

What happens when we cannot tolerate a person’s behaviour based on our own morals or beliefs? Do we walk away, do we apply love and forbearance, do we try to influence the situation and change the behaviour. What roles does absolute freedom then have?