“The craving for equality can express itself either as a desire to pull everyone down to our own level or as a desire to raise ourselves up along with everyone else.” –Friedrich Nietzsche


Equality.

It is a great ideal and a marvelous target, but really hard to work out with consistent action.

I know.

I have three granddaughters.

They take turns having their weekend at our home. It works best that way because then I can give my full attention to each granddaughter when it is their turn.

The problem is, if one gets something, then the other one wants it too. So this becomes an arms race of sorts with mutually-assured misery because it never quite feels like they got the full measure as the previous sister.

I try to be fair. I take great pains to plan and put together fun activities for each girl based on her maturity level. The devil in the details is the infernal comparing of themselves to the others and their notion that somehow they got the short straw. It is always the two who were not at my house who are lamenting, “No fair!” when the returning child talks about what we did. It will always be this way. When we compare ourselves to others in order to despise their blessings, we will always be the ones saying “No fair!” about their status compared to ours.

It is a dangerous game to play.

You can become set in your view and then begin the destructive cycle of longing to bring the other down a peg or two in your envious zeal.

We can see that occurring in our own culture. Class Warfare and Facebook one-uppers abound form a destructive vortex that can become a black hole if tolerated and fed.

The converse is the willingness to reach back and lift up. That is not Class Warfare….that is just class.

I pray that my granddaughters will learn the way of lifters and not yankers from below.

It is a choice that each of us make each and every day.

In the name of equality, may we all strive to be equally loving and caring today.

Galatians 3:28, New International Version (NIV): "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.“