Protesters and police officers are often at odds, but in the end they are all humans, and basic human kindness is called for.

The police officer in this photo was injured as a protest and the young man was not. And so he picked up the injured state agent and carried them to safety. He did this, not because he believed in the rightness of the state or the rightness of a cop threatening violence. Rather, he believed in the elimination and avoidance of human suffering… and he saw the cop as a fellow human being instead of merely an enemy uniform.

There is a great deal of good that can come from loving our “enemies.” We must see them as people, not targets.

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Before returning to the mundane, imagine yourself in the position of the young man in the image: Disagreeing with and even being offended by what the police officer’s bosses were doing, but still seeing a suffering human being in front of him, and acting to repair it. Spend a moment with those thoughts, imagine others standing near you, imagine the cop’s feelings.