Equality

CNN’s Jack Cafferty tells us “Conservatives are happier than liberals,” and goes on to comment on the “Psychological Science” journal study whose research reached that conclusion.

Regardless of differing circumstances, “people with right-wing ideologies report greater satisfaction with their lives than those with left-wing beliefs.”

Cafferty continues: “For example, a conservative might support the idea of a meritocracy – that if you work hard and perform well, you’ll move up the economic ladder… and if you don’t, you probably won’t. But the study shows liberals tend to be troubled by this. Inequalities take a greater psychological toll on liberals, apparently because they can’t rationalize away the gaps in society and thus end up more frustrated by them.”

For all of America’s firm belief in all men being “created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” we are not equal.

My sister is shorter than I am – we are not equal in dress size, either. My daughter’s foot would be lost in my shoes. My sister-in-law’s sewing talents outrank most of the women we both know. When I am buried, my tombstone will not equal those around me – it will either be bigger or smaller. Why wouldn’t our economic and social status be just as different?

There is only one spot I know of where we are all equal, and equally loved:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16 KJV)

Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. (Acts 10:34-35 KJV)

We are not the same. And, for that we thank God and His good reason for making us different:

For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. (1 Corinthians 12:14-18 KJV)

Knowing this, Paul tells us we will be different: For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: (Romans 12:4 KJV)

Although we do not have the same ‘office’, we do have the same Father: For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26 KJV)

Perhaps the answer goes beyond ‘rationalization’ as Cafferty stated, and resides in faith that God is in control of our lives and with Him is true equality.