Monday, May 30, 2005

Redemption From What? Yesterday's post seems too vague, now that I re-read it with a night of sleep in between. I was trying to express a heartful of pain, over how people can hurt one another so very badly through their personal choices. Here is the more honest story. I have been writing with an old family friend who has built a life that he is very proud of. He's so happy with his new life and friends. He has found purpose and meaning, love and redemption. Their lifestyle is based on a small set of ironclad rules that he feels are RIGHT in an absolute way. Those rules are what he judges everybody else's life by, as well. Because he has a social circle pointing to proofs of the absolute and infinite correctness of those rules, he is convinced they should apply to everyone and everything else. These rules give him meaning, comfort, security, happiness and a feeling of freedom from sin within their scope. I appreciate the value of that. He has built a life for himself that gives him pleasure and safety. We all want pleasure and comfort and security, I think. I am pleased for him, that he's pulled himself up to a place where he's so satisfied. The problem is the flip side of my friend's coin. He is convinced that all other sets of guidelines are untrue, therefore false and misleading. He tends hatred like a farmer tends his crops. He counts his enemies like a miser counts his coins. Things that don't fit within his guidelines must be shunned or converted or possibly destroyed; acceptance and respect are not possible. I recently learned something more about him. Someone, who is like a brother to this man, sent my friend a newsletter that he mistakenly thought the friend would like. Friend's response was to cut off the relationship forever. No more communication ever, because a gift was given. A lifetime of brotherly friendship severed in an instant by the guillotine of judgement. No appreciation of the gesture, no reaching out to try to bridge the differences. No respect. Just one less brother, for each of them now. How tragic. How tragic to credit God for this type of behavior. I reach out to stay in touch with him because lifetime relationships are important to me. He was a part of my family, helped shape our family with his wild humor and creativity. Every interaction, though, ends up leading to his questioning of my personal beliefs. I speak plainly and tell him that I've built my personal beliefs through a lifetime of living and thinking, pain and miracles. I cherish them. I also tell him that I respect and value the fact that he built his own beliefs from his own lifetime of living and thinking, pain and miracles. I'd never want to rob him of those beliefs so that he could adopt mine. I have asked him not to suggest that I need to adopt his beliefs. But our conversations always come back to that. He must reject all other beliefs and he must try to recruit others to his. He must hate all other spiritual paths in order to convince himself that his is the only right one. I thought he would enjoy Real Live Preacher's blog, so I recommended it. He read the stories currently posted, including "The Fractured Family of Men" and went ballistic. He was disgusted and horrified and out of patience that I didn't understand the true abominable Nazi agenda of all homosexuals, for whom he feels pity. The hate was fully laid bare at last. I have been grappling with these issues all week, unable to find a way to reply that would make sense to both of us. I recognize now that whatever I want to say is so very different from his world that there may be no common ground for discussion. Most likely I'm also slated for excommunication. And yet his last message to me was another attempt to convert me to his way of thinking. We are what we build ourselves into being. The sun rises again for us with each new breath... another chance to rebuild ourselves more lovingly. Anything can change. Everything can change. * * * * * * 11:13:10 AM    comment []

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