"Start learning to love God by loving those you cannot love. The more you remember others with kindness and generosity, the more you forget yourself, and when you completely forget yourself, you find God."
I have spent a great deal of time lately thinking about God, the church, religion, people of God, etc., and I find myself more frustrated than ever at how it's all changing and becoming much less about God and much more about power and hate.
There are many things, maybe even people, in this world that I do not like. But I cannot think of one thing right now that I actually hate. A year ago, I could have given you a nice long list of things I hated. There are people whose actions I am not a fan of, several concepts or ideas that I don't like or don't agree with, but I really have somehow managed to lose the feeling of hate. Feeling hate never really did anything for me anyway. It never made me a better person, gave me more money or popularity, or gave me anything except a big headache.
I recently realized that it was costing me a fortune in my physical, mental and spiritual "bank" to hold on to anger, resentment and hostility. For once I'm not just talking about my marriage, family and home life! I was listening to the garbage of a lot of outside influences--other angry people, in-person or on tv, that were actually encouraging people to hate all the things that weren't just like them. It seemed like that was what we were supposed to be doing if we wanted to be "right". And it was killing me physically, mentally and spiritually. My aches and pains went far beyond what my body was feeling.
How did it come to be that the people who claim to be the most religious, the followers of Christ, the leaders of "the Church", are some of the most hate-filled, most angry people on the planet right now? Please tell me when, in all his 30 some odd years, did Jesus Christ EVER hate anybody? When did He EVER encite vicious, angry crowds or shout at the top of His lungs how right He was and wrong everyone else was? When did He ever stand up and tell people to act as He said but not as He acted? HE NEVER DID ANY OF THOSE THINGS! He loved people. He cared for people. He comforted people. He went so far as to love the people that everyone else hated. So why have the "people of God" taken it upon themselves to revise the principles that ARE the foundation of Christianity?
If being a Christian means acting in a way even remotely close to the way a majority of Christians are acting these days, then I don't want to be one. I want a new name. I want a name that actually reflects the teachings of Jesus and what he meant to the world. I want a name that says there's no hate, only love. I want a name that says every person on this planet is a child of God and every creature on this planet was made from the same God that made me. I want a name that doesn't scream our differences but embraces us all because of what each person has to offer. I want a name that softly says come together and talk and discuss and build up one another and combine energy to make changes to better every life, not just the lives of a few. I want a name that says pass on the love and thankfulness that you feel because people are hurting all around you and need to be lifted up too.
I want a name that says we all come from different places, we come with different ideas and we are all on our own path. We come at it from many directions but we all are searching for the same thing--LOVE.
I've officially decided that I don't care if the rest of the world thinks I'm "right". I am embracing the lives of those around me and those no one else wants to accept, whether they live down the street or on the other side of the world.
That's what is "right" to me.
