I know that a lot of my friends worry about me from time to time, because I always seem so angry with what’s happening in the world. I don’t blame them, because I am often angry. Look around and see all of the horrible things going on in the world, and tell me you don’t feel that anger yourself?
I’m not saying be angry all of the time, that does no one any good, and even some of my favorite people in history took time to enjoy life, and immerse themselves in the people and the events of their day that lead to happiness. I do this, believe it or not, even if it seems like my online presence suggests otherwise.
If you were to meet me in person, you’d get a smile, a handshake or a hug, and an offer for something to eat, a place to rest, or whatever would make you comfortable. See, it’s not that I am angry all of the time, it’s that I direct my anger towards the people who cause so much suffering, the people in power who have put us in this situation where we’re fighting over resources while they hoard plenty.
That’s a topic for another day, though. What I want to talk about is how so many people have let their hearts grow bitter towards other human beings, to where people just fighting to survive have become objects of scorn and ridicule.
Look at the situation involving trans people. They get called pedophiles, groomers, child molesters, perverts, deviants, degenerates, doorways to sin, and all they’re trying to do is live their lives without harming anyone else. These people have let their hearts become so bitterly cold that they don’t even see trans people as worth consideration.
I see it especially in the so-called religion of love and peace, Christianity. I can point it out because I was a Christian at one time in my life, and had bought, wholesale, into the notion that Jesus loved me and wanted to save me from sin.
I have long since changed that belief system, instead choosing to embrace the thoughts and feelings I had when I was a very wee child. Did you know as a child I’d talk to the rocks, and the trees? I’d sit quietly and whisper to the birds and the bees. That rhymes, but it’s still true.
I felt the magic in the air during a thunderstorm, and wondered what secrets lay way beyond the stars at night. I liked fire. I like fire. I was and still am a water child, and talking to plants is something I enjoy doing even to this day.
The one thing I kept from Christianity is my love of what Jesus represented. I’d like to believe there really was a Jesus who told Peter to put away his sword, who healed the sick, and comforted the afflicted, a holy man who became angry when he saw the money changers cheating the hard working people coming to offer their best to their God in the temple.
The Christians I see today, the ones with the bitter hearts, I weep for them, because they’ve sold off their humanity, and for what? A taste of a kingdom that might not even exist? The lionization of a man who would be shocked and appalled at how they treat the poor and the weak?
What good is a Christianity who would call Christ a woke loser? A deviant associating with the dregs of society? It’s a Christianity that only serves power, and these people have replaced the warm human heart with the cold ambition of more power.
These evangelical Christians have become a bitter hearts club, saying “love” and “peace,” while advocating for hatred and war. They’re willing to push away family and friends not to protect others, but to protect their own power and privilege.
They have become a cumbersome lot, causing irrevocable harm to so many, and yet I guarantee you they see themselves as the good guys, the defenders of the faith, in much the same way the Spanish Inquisition saw itself as protecting the faith of their god, and like the Spanish Inquisition, they have no compunctions about killing and destroying in the name of “good.”
Look, I do believe that some violence is necessary from time to time, but it should always be directed at power, and always limited to what is necessary, stopped immediately when it is no longer needed.
These people, though, they use violence in ways most people don’t realize: systemic violence that slowly crushes and kills by legalistic standard rather than by something so naked as a gun.
So where do we go? I don’t know. I have family who have succumbed to this cold hearted bitterness. They’ll feed children, and then cast out people they see as gay or trans, and the whole time they’ll claim they’re only telling the truth.
It’s such a hateful, cynical cover, and it’s a symptom of that bitter heart that has stopped loving the way Jesus loved, and has decided to limit their love to a nostalgic idea of what love is supposed to be, and they’ll do it without a hint of irony.
This is such a big subject, and I know I can’t cover it all today, but I just wanted to mention what I’ve been observing at home, on the news, in social media groups, and I wanted to say something about it for now.
Don’t let your heart succumb to bitterness. Yes, people can be trying, they can cause us to want to close up, to surround ourselves with a hard shell. Believe me, I understand it. So take your rest, take time to recover, but don’t keep your heart exposed until it loses all sensation, like calluses that won’t go away.
Just something to think about.
.Red
