Dealing With Such An Ugly Pair

Assumption and judgement, what a pair.  You could say that I consider them ugly cousins.  These are a couple of darknesses that seep out of so many of us.  I’d be curious to corral 1,000 random people of the world and inquire of them what their own personal definition of hate is.  I’d imagine that a handful of them would give me such deep answers or perspectives from intriguing angles to the point of giving me goosebumps.  That would be such a highlight.  Though, I’d also imagine most people giving me their definition and then witnessing a glimmer of false pride in their eyes as if no such thing seeps from them in the least. 

Hearing me say that people shouldn’t look at being wrong as a bad thing might make some people raise an eyebrow, but I hope the lot of you would agree.  Being wrong translates into you having the option to wipe your slate clean.  Wiping the slate clean doesn’t have to be this wildly life-changing event.  We should be and can be willing to wipe our slates clean repeatedly in numerous compartments of our lives.  You can’t build a building by just setting one fully built down on level ground, it has to be built brick by brick.  It makes me wonder why such a simple idea is surpassed as often as it is.

 Hate is usually in the smallest actions, the shortest sentences. A few of those a day from millions of people, and what do you have? The source of humanity’s decay. There will never be any peace in this world unless you search within yourself, yank all those nasty hidden leeches out of you and burn them with your passion and determination.  No, not hand them on over to your enemies, burn them.  People that have been eaten away to a greater extent need even further consideration, even further reflection.  
🙂
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Don’t Gather Into The Coagulated Mass

We might want to reconsider a common phrase of ours… okay, quite a few phrases of ours, but we’ll get to the rest eventually.  This specific one I’m tackling is overused usually around election time and has been phrased in various ways.  So, maybe we should tackle it as an idea rather than words because we all know how empty words can be.

I often witness someone puff on their cigar through a cheesy grin while they run their thumbs back and forth underneath their tattered suspenders as they say something along the lines of, “”Whoa! My political opinion just changed because of what you posted on Facebook” – said no one ever.”  This is a massive issue that needs addressed within ourselves.  You cannot gain true knowledge or wisdom without fully opening every vessel to your mind.  Where did we adopt this idea that we should filter before knowledge even looks our way?  Let’s soak up every perspective at least partially, prior to filtering it out and sweeping it under a rug.  Can you honestly say you can genuinely grow otherwise?

May I also bring to the surface that it seems that according to a couple studies, many of us are indeed moved in some way by our social circles when political issues are presented to us?  According to my research, it completely depends on the way the majority of us are approached.  One approach may lead us down a newly paved political road, while another approach will completely backfire as we psychologically cling onto our beliefs even tighter.  Either way can hold the exact same data or knowledge, but it’s all in the approach according to the Pew Research Center and the University of Michigan.  This does not infer that we have to be limited by even this much though if we as a human race continue working on ourselves

I believe an Unknown fellow laid it out best, “You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.”

We can’t possibly believe that every single thought or idea outside of our own, even ones that we haven’t yet reached, is inherently wrong in every way.  I, along with many others throughout this world are walking proof that we can step out of our little black and white box, pat the prideful lint off of our sleeves, straighten the obnoxiously stubborn creases out of our trousers, and progress.  I have altered my views politically quite a few times when proven wrong or when I have been enlightened further.  I have also done some fine-tuning with my spiritual/religious beliefs within the past few years as well.  This is all okay, I came out alive, even more-so.

Yes, naturally, it would have to take a heck of a lot for me to let anything new in that doesn’t at least somewhat fit my belief system.  I have my priorities, and no human should be able to shake your priorities or your core.  There is a difference between cleaning and straightening up stitching and tears through re-upholstery compared to taking a sledgehammer to your roof, walls, flooring, & plumbing.  🙂

http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/09/04/politics-on-social-networking-sites/

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/nyhan-reifler.pdf

So Many of Us Shifting The Blame

http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/steve-safigan/2012051622128

One of my concerns is over this quote I’ve been seeing float around the internet frequently. It has its rounds where if one person shares it on Facebook or Pinterest, then several of their friends relate to it & share it as well. Every once in a while, this is one of the most popular quotes I see. Something is sorely wrong here.

Let’s begin by chewing on the fact that when many people find a statement with quotes around it, there’s this mindset that they ran into a golden idea. Quotations insist that their must be some sort of golden credibility or common sense to the statement right? How about if we place the quote on a pretty background, doesn’t this give the idea some official seal? What moves us to be so accepting of an idea that is decorated & merely seems powerful at the surface?

All that is necessary is wiping the glitter off the surface to expose something that will mildly improve one’s self. Even though it’s just a step to preventing grime from collecting on ourselves, this is more appealing than smearing the grime all over the ground we all walk on. The grime of these rotten ideas, insults to true knowledge & wisdom, are spread so thin on the ground we walk on every day by the media, corporations, & ourselves that we don’t even realize for quite some time that we were even walking on an unclean ground. Usually by the time we’re somewhat aware, the grime spreads to our legs, our hands, our eyes and mouth. We become blind & start spitting out some of the grime back onto the ground or even into other people’s faces until they obey or until our children learn to respect & appreciate it.

Oh, you might think this is an exaggeration. The thing is, ideas are one of the most powerful things a human being could hold. There is no such thing as a scanty idea, only ideas that have yet to be fully developed and implemented. We often underestimate how rapidly an idea we hold can either develop us into something monstrous or into something worth knowing in multiple aspects.

“Don’t get confused between my personality and my attitude. My personality is who I am, my attitude depends on who you are.”, is no golden thought or idea. Neither your personality, nor your attitude have any relation at all with any other person. It’s an illusion, it’s an easy way to shift the weight. We need to cease this infatuation with what’s easy. The right thing is hardly ever within the vicinity of easy & this isn’t new. We should feel empowerment through kicking this grime off of our soles, not by shoving our foot, this grime, in other people’s faces & then puffing out our chests as we walk away while leaving a fragment of our integrity behind. I don’t need to tell any of you any of this though. All you have to do is take that extra step of wiping the coat of glitter off the grime yourself. 🙂

Understanding possible reasons for some seemingly hateful Christians

“The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What troubles me & is difficult to admit for me since I believe in God is that from experience, the majority of people I come across who are filled with the most hate(seemingly) are people who call themselves Christians. It’s ironic & we need to fix it.  There could be many reasons why so much hate is in the atmosphere of my community & it’s not entirely the average individual Christian’s fault.  The media does a bang-up job in propelling negative stereotypes & being a major influence of what disunites humanity as a whole.

When it comes to mending something so crucial, or mending a mass, it’s always best to mend from the inside out.  If we don’t sincerely dig deep enough within ourselves, we’ll just continue recreating low-quality shells of ourselves.  We can be solid, intricately put together from nail, to frame, to roof, to plumbing, to furnishings.  We need this.  We ARE society.  Every single one of us is what’s wrong with society, just to varying degrees of error.  We don’t have to be Christian, Jewish, Atheist, or Muslim to do so, renewing the world through this.  Though, since my experience with a very large quantity of fellow Christians is how this post began, let’s analyze the possibilities of why my experience/opinion could have some solid truth to it.

The unique pressure.   Well, each of us are nowhere near perfect & we all have to deal with many sorts of pressures, but maybe the pressures on a Christian can be of a larger mass in certain aspects & not the sort of pressure non-believers or people with some other beliefs can really relate to which can weigh down the pressure even further.  We’ve all heard the cut & dry, “If you don’t accept God & Jesus into your heart, you will burn for all eternity.”.   I realize this can really give us Christians the overall feeling of doom, needing to perfect every facet of ourselves, & rushing to help save the souls of the ones we deeply care for by teaching the love of God.  Not many people in this world outside of certain communities have to fret about such an immense concept & the idea can really get to your head if you don’t approach things the right way & find peace through God.  This can lead to it all completely backfiring, causing chaos within us & emanating it into the atmosphere we share with everybody else.

Blurring the line between walking down a Godly path & acting exactly like God.  There is a difference between submersing yourself in a Godly atmosphere & then partaking in actions & thoughts that only God has a right to.  Yes, I’m speaking of being judgmental or condemning others.  It’s perfectly fine to notice a wrong in someone, a sin, & then steering away from it & praying for the person.  Heck, you can even walk right up to the person & explain why you are so uncomfortable, but be prepared if they are not ready to hear it & want nothing to do with what you believe or present to them.  This is where I notice many of us Christians not being able to let that go.  Sometimes we push & push(sometimes ending in frustration & name-calling) so much that they’re even more turned off by the idea of God & the Christian community than they were before you even started the conversation, or should I say CONVERTsation?  Haha.  😉  This is okay in one perspective, afterall, we’re just having great intentions & spreading God’s word, correct?  That’s not the problem though & this fact only nourishes the self instead of others.  The problem is the APPROACH itself, nothing more.

From what I recall of the Bible, when Jesus spread the word, he was very mild, approachable, humble, loving, peaceful, & understanding.  I often do not see a single one of these traits while a believer & non-believer are clashing in a conversation.  I’m sure God & Jesus also knew/know when a person is not ready to accept.  We are often told this all the time in church with receiving the gift of tongues for example, “You just have to be ready, it’s okay that you’re not ready yet, you will be ready soon.”.  Maybe we need to keep that in mind more when dealing with non-believers?

We’re so passionately devoted that we gush & overflow sometimes.   This is another example of a good thing & a no-so-good thing.  Being this way inspires ourselves & empowers ourselves.  In short, it makes us happy feeling God’s presence, being so thankful toward Him, & wanting the world to know how great He is.  Not only does this make US feel invigorated, but also those who relate to us in that way.  Imagine that you’re a teenage boy & have a best gal pal whose family is culturally-unique compared to what you’re used to & throws a big vivacious party for your gal pal all because she started her monthly for the first time & she wants you to come, of course.  Not only does her family celebrate her womanhood with such gaiety, they overdo it with all sorts of quirky games that have a theme loosely relating to her, um, event.  As a boy, you don’t really care about what is happening because in your mind this will never happen to you, it has nothing to do with you, it’s practically foreign.  You’re also an adolescent which in my point is representing the youth, the naivety, the seed that hasn’t sprouted.  The non-believer being the teenage boy, the believer being the teenage girl.

In other words, we can be very overwhelming which automatically turns certain people off obviously.  If that isn’t enough, if & when we witness someone commit a sin for the hundredth time while rolling around in their elation, we can end up projecting ourselves onto that person, as if they should fully know better.  When I say we’re “so passionately devoted”, I mean that we experience such great results in having a close relationship with God & doing things that make our Father happy, that when someone near us commits what we see as an atrocity, we can feel as if that person is in some way raining on our parade with their spit.  We are so used to our ways & know fully how good it can be, that we can see others as merely passing up the most amazing opportunity of their lives without even flinching, which can lead to some impulsive explosions from us.

Ok, so this information is nothing new for a lot of people.  My point here was simply to have this as a reminder for us all & having you guys see it through the tint of my lens specifically.  All of this just comes down to tolerance & working even harder at setting ourselves aside to let God take care of the details that are meant for Him alone.  Tolerance & love need to be more than just Band-Aids for us.  We as a human race(not just Christians) need to let tolerance & love mend us from the inside out till we are completely renewed.  With the help of God & our willingness to receive, absolutely anything is possible.  If you would like me to clear something up(maybe I worded something in an odd way that offended you or confused you), add to this post, or go further into detail with me with specific verses from the Bible, just type away in the comment section!   Thank you for letting me waste your time!  🙂