I’m probably not going to do a podcast tonight. Certain issues I prefer to not discuss publicly have intensified, and I’m feeling more than a little beat up. When everything you do is treated like toilet paper and you’re actively being hated, an atmosphere for creative energy and spiritual musing is a tad difficult to come by.
I am pleased that my recent posts on Sarah Palin have garnered some attention. While in the interest of being honest I freely admit I’d love to be accumulating tens of thousands of hits per day as compared to my current… well, tens, the fact people have been kind enough to directly respond and make favorable mention of the posts is encouraging. A pat on the back is a good thing to feel.
Getting back to the aforementioned problems, where there is naturally a strong temptation to desire revenge — the deeper the better — I am as best I can trying to follow the example of Ingrid Betancourt who despite the inconceivable horrors she endured in her years of being held captive by Colombian rebels has chosen as her response adherence to faith and seeking the ability to forgive. If she can do that after what she suffered, surely I can handle being figuratively thrown up on without succumbing to bitterness. Besides, at the risk of sounding more than a little sardonic of what use is an attitude of telling people “go to hell” when they’re doing such a splendid job of taking themselves there?
The people easiest to hate are often the people easiest to pity. Why? They have no knowledge of God’s love. They see only the flashlight of whichever false gods they worship — self, money, power, lust; the list goes on — and not the Light of the world. For them nothing lies ahead save a grave over which few will weep and a terrible judgment. The believer’s heart needs to be attuned to this, softened by this reality: there is no difference between themselves and the walking damned except a knowledge, a confession of their state and how the shed blood of Christ on the cross offered as payment for the penalty of their sin, thus breaching the otherwise uncrossable divide between perfect God and imperfect man, is the only thing standing between them and the same fate awaiting fallen humanity. With this reality embedded in heart, mind and soul the believer knows there is no option but confronting, forcibly if need be, the lost regardless of respective standings used by the world to “measure” one against another. Far better to slap someone across the face with the reality of not only their situation but life itself than literally slap them across the face no matter how strong the urge to do so may be.
Hmm. Guess I had something to say today after all.
