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talking to myself

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The struggle to be a loving human being


markdohle

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The struggle to be a loving human being

Many years ago the community watched a program on crime syndicates.  It was in three episodes.  In one of the segments they had a ‘contract killer’ interview.  His voice was covered over and he was a shadow when giving the interview, so he was free to answer all the questions that were asked him.  Here was a human being, who killed strangers and possible people he knew for a fee and we were allowed to get a glimpse into his mind via the interviewer.

There was one question that stuck to me.  The interviewer asked the man what it was like to kill someone and if it bothered him to do so.  He thought for a ‘short’ time and responded in a calm voice that “yes the first two or three were hard to snuff (his words), but after that, killing people was like stepping on a cockroach”.  I found that chilling in the extreme.  Yet it did not frighten me, for even back then I was aware of my own constellation of struggles that I was dealing with. 

From what I gathered from that segment was that he made a choice to make that first killing and it bothered him.  Then for the second, perhaps it felt a little less ‘wrong’ for him to do it, then on the third, perhaps because of the heinousness of the act, something in him died and he became a professional killer.  Perhaps his love of the money he got for his service was the most important thing for him.  He did say that he lived very well and was in fact happy.

This world is very hard, a difficult place to live in and in the end if we live long enough no matter if we are ‘good’ or ‘evil’ we will lose everything, then ourselves when we each experience personal death.  From birth to death, we are asked to make choices, which form us, create us into monsters or into something else.  I guess that something else is what people call “a saint’.  I guess there are little monsters and little saints living in all of us, or perhaps most of us, or for sure in me.  We choose over the course of our life what we want to feed and allow to grow.  No matter which way we decide to go down, often made by our many small choices, we will encounter suffering, for to choose one way is to let go of the other. 

Most people seek to become better human beings, but our natures are often bruised and wounded by life, especially at the beginning of our lives.  Children do not compare, they just experience what goes on around them and accept that as the ‘real’ world.  It could be a loving caring one, or one that is loveless and filled with abuse.  These experiences often dictate our ‘interior’ path towards wholeness and holiness, or towards a downward spiral of personal inner fragmentation and disintegration.  Yes we live in a difficult world. 

What are we called to as human beings?  Perhaps it is to become more human, more fully what we are made to be, and in spite of inner tendencies towards self destruction, which is outwardly manifested in our societies.  I believe in order to reverse this trend we need grace.  Grace is manifested in many ways.   In the human sphere we have friends who ‘grace’ us with their love and concern.  This is a free gift; we cannot demand friendship from any one, for it is simply given.  Groups show grace to their members as well.  AA comes to mind, a fellowship of men and women who come together to face their own brand of self destruction and inner fragmentation.  By doing so, by accepting this grace they slowly move towards integration and healing.  They develop a trusting relationship with their ‘Higher Power’.    The use of the term “Higher Power’ is needed because some  believers often use God as their personal bludgeon to beat down others who are different and have struggles other than their own.  They become ‘blockers’ of God’s grace in the lives of others by just adding another wound, one of many.

Then there is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, who shows us the depth and width of Gods love for each of us.  True many reject the scriptures as true and trustworthy and I understand that.  However, the deeper one goes into the Heart of Jesus Christ and his power, the more intense the healing and ability to embrace life and all that it throws at us.  It is then that the reality of His resurrection is experienced. 

You judge a tree by its fruits.  If I see the fruits of the Spirit in people of another path, then I thank God for filling them with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  People who struggle with doubt, with addictions and with other mental and emotional issues that this hard world can put on us I believe are especially close to Father.   I am amazed at God’s love and mercy for each of us.

In order to experience the freedom of the children of God, we have to die to ways of thinking and being that our past has tried to form us into.  In the end, love and mercy and the forgiveness of our enemies and to actually love them are the only rational approach to life.  For as we look at the world around us, we see the fruit of not living according to those principles.  Yet, it seems impossible to do so.

The growth of love in the human heart that goes beyond family, friends, race and religions for me is a true indication of the work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart.  The greatest spiritual gift is love, faith and hope will one day not be needed, but love is for eternity. 

 

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