I remember learning about the wonders of the world, the ancient and the modern, and I thought how cool it was that something so wondrous could last so long. I was so amazed by all fourteen of them and I just knew that one day I would see all the remaining wonders - I had to, it became a goal.

The other week I had the opportunity to see one of them, to see the Colosseum in Rome. When learning about the Colosseum it seemed that class conversations always seemed to revolve around the killing of Christians, that they were fed to the lions, forced to fight to the death because they believed in Jesus as their God, instead of following the polytheistic beliefs of the Romans. When I went to the Colosseum, I kept thinking over and over about these Christians, about any Gladiator that must have stood in that ring facing almost certain death.

When I was staring down from where the plebeians stood I had the little audioguide in my ears speaking to me in a fancy British accent, spewing out fact after fact effortlessly. Then the disembodied voice said something really interesting:

According to the Christian myth, this is where many Christians were killed. Though, there is no real proof of this we do know that Christians were persecuted at the time.

And that really got to me. Almost my entire life I never even really questioned it, I just took it in as fact, which is foolish but honest. As Christians we hear almost always how much we are persecuted, that following Jesus isn't easy and people will judge you, and that's true. But I think that more often, at least today, it seems like Christians are the ones doing the persecuting.

I feel, ya, Ted Cruz, I feel, ya. In today's world, there isn't a colosseum with lions and games to point at a certain people and torture. Instead, we pass judgment on each other. We reject what we can't understand, passing laws to dismiss people that don't conform to certain societal beliefs, like gender identity or heterosexuality. We hide behind the word God and morals, but at what point does it stop being about God and start being about our own fears?

It's strange that we find it so easy to cling to the past. To say, remember when we were thrown in pits and slaughtered because of what we believe, but when it comes to today we're almost blind to our own actions?

I don't have a real solution, just an idea: what if you went one day, one week, one month, imagining why someone does the things the do instead of dismissing them because they're different? Imagine all the things we would come to understand, the patience we strengthen, the increase of love and decrease of chaos. Imagine a world where Congress wasn't like the Colosseum, where Christians loved their neighbor no matter the difference in religion or race or sexuality or anything. That's the kind of world I want to live in. The kind where love is more important than differences.