What tolerance actually looks like

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3795157137_64f7249776_Car-crucifixMost of you probably don’t know me, since I’m quite new as an XYZ contributer, but I am very definitely Christian.

Recently I gave a lift to a friend who is a humanist, and who doesn’t believe in God but doesn’t completely disbelieve either. Knowing that we have such a fundamental disagreement, I asked if he thought I had too much religious stuff in my car (meaning to ask if it was offensively in his face).

What I have is a glass sculpture of a cross and a coin-sized token of St Dominic Savio on my dashboard, an icon of St Monica on the front seat, and, at the time, a broken crucifix that I had to take to be mended.

My friend’s reply was that, not believing in my faith, he wasn’t one to comment.

This, to me, is an example of real tolerance: he wasn’t offended by what I had in my own car, no matter how obvious it made our difference of beliefs. It simply didn’t matter to him, so he ignored it.

Food for thought.

Photo by jonfeinstein