The second notion presented by Curtis in the show
Off the Left Eye is about attributes. It is ridiculously easy to meld together a person with their behavior in one slender slice of time. They cut you off in traffic, therefore
they are a Jerk. It obliterates their humanity both before and after that moment, cramming a lifetime into three seconds. Brutal.
Curtis quotes Swedenborg who describes the willingness of angels to put a good interpretation on even regrettable actions.
Those who are guided by kindness, on the other hand, hardly even notice evil in another but pay attention instead to everything good and true in the person. When
they do find anything bad or false, they put a good interpretation on it. This is a characteristic of all angels—one they acquire from the Lord, who bends everything bad toward good.
-Heavenly Secrets 1079
It is easy to neglect to give the benefit of the doubt. I know I have. There are interactions I have had with people in high school whom I have not seen since, that have been the entire criteria I have for judging their
character. Pompous in the extreme.
There is a
video about an animal who needed a root canal. Ok, it was a commercial. It showed the evolution of a white lion named Aslan who was aloof, isolated and irritable. Turns out he had chronic pain and eating was painful. But after surgery by a team of dentists, he became more playful,
content, and integrated into the pride. Just like that.
An attribute. One frame in an unending stream of life.
