Acts 22:1-5. The beginning of Paul's self-defense before the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. He begins by giving his bona-fides. He speaks to them in Hebrew, which quiets them, and tells them he was well-educated by the "right" people, "according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as you all are this day." He tells them he persecuted the Christians even to death, and was on his way to Damascus to bring the Christians there in chains to Jerusalem for punishment when he had his conversion.

Apparently, people never change. Just like today, there is no chance of your "enemy" listening to you unless you can convince him or her that you are just like them only perhaps you see things a little bit differently. Paul gets the Jewish leaders' attention by speaking in their language. This quiets them because they don't expect this "other" to know their language. Then Paul normalizes himself. He is a Jew, he was educated in the same way they were, he used to wholeheartedly play for their team. He knoew the only way the Jewsih leaders would have listened to anything he had to say was if they first felt some commonality with him.

Why do we do this to each other? Our commonality is that we are all children of God, no other justification is needed for us to listen to someone. It is tragic that we so easily "other" people, even people we've known all our lives, when faced with a frightening or threatening situation.

I'm going to work very hard on not doing this. I find that praying for my enemies helps a lot (that is, I'm sure, the reason Jesus told us to do it!). When I pray for someone who I just see as being so wrong (for example, like Kim Jong-Un); someone who I just cannot wrap my head around how they act the way they act, I start seeing that person as another human being, worthy of God's grace, even if I still do not understand them. It is freeing!