We’ve heard it said that we should bless our enemies, but there is truth to blessing the hell out of people. An eye for an eye doesn’t change anything, it simply adds to the # of hurting people out there in the world. I believe we literally can bless the hell out of people. When we are kind and choose to love those that have hurt us or have done us wrong, we are reaching into that person and attempting to pull the hell that surrounds their soul right out of their being. When we choose to befriend the person who appears to be miserable and doesn’t seem to want company, we force our way into their darkness and present a flicker where it was once pitch black. It isn’t easy, but necessary if we hope for a better world for ourselves and future generations.
The “eye for an eye” mentality has to shift. We need to take the power back from the ego and allow love to guide the way. Just today, my fiancé was telling me that investigators believe the bombings of the churches in Sri Lanka was retaliation for the attack on the mosques in New Zealand (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/world/asia/sri-lanka-bombing.html) More than 300 people dead on a holiday that is meant to celebrate life, renewal, and resurrection is saddening and maddening. While many of us, myself included, are tempted to find anger and hatred in our hearts toward the perpetrators that effected these killings, we must instead bless the hell out of them.
We must instead intentionally choose to pray for them. Pray that the mental and spiritual disturbances within them will be healed (and if you are in the position, help them to heal). Pray that the sanctity of life will be revealed to them. Pray that they feel the gravity of what they’ve done and that the self-induced consequences will be enough to transform them back to love. Pray for the families of the victims that they not harbor hate within their heart for these individuals who caused the death of their loved ones. Pray that their grief process is a healthy one. Pray that they are comforted in this time by their relatives, friends, community, and the world. Pray that God, Source, Allah, Jehovah… (w/e you call God by) will give those who committed this atrocity eyes to see the damage they’ve done to those that are just like them. Pray that they develop eyes to see their sameness with those they’ve wronged. Pray that they learn compassion and love through their misguided actions.
We need to start turning the tide of this world. While I believe, God is in control of all tides. I also believe in free will. I pray that all people will start choosing love and allowing love to guide their actions in more positive ways. Destruction of another sacred place where people are honoring God in the way that they believe does not prove your love of God. Loving and honoring all of God’s creation and at the very least accepting and doing no harm proves your love of God.
Any place or institution of faith that does not preach love is not the truth as far as I’m concerned. As I embark on my spiritual path and garner readings from various sacred texts, I’m finding that the common underlying message in them is indeed love. It doesn’t take a book to realize for yourself that this is the answer. We each know the power of love if we’ve loved another at one time in our life or have experienced love as a receiver. Love is powerful. It has the ability to open previously closed doors/hearts. It has the ability to heal the sick. It has the ability to raise another from the “dead” (depression, anger, bitterness, sadness, etc.). It has the ability to teach, especially in instances where we’ve attempted to give, what we knew at the time to be, love and had it forsaken or alternatively when we’ve received another’s love and forsook it for our own selfishness or ignorance. Love is always the answer even at times when it doesn’t initially appear to have been the “right” path.
The action of love is not as simple as many believe. Alternatively, maybe it is too simple, which makes it complex. For instance, I wonder if these individuals who commit these heinous acts mistakenly believe that they are committing them out of love. Maybe they believe that they love their “God” so much that they must defend “Him,” by committing these acts. If that is the case, they must believe that God is very small if He requires their defense. Instead of taking defense into their own hands, maybe they should be allowing God to come to their defense if they feel they’ve been wronged. I’m pretty sure people don’t walk away freely when they’ve acted unjustly. One way or another there is retribution and it is not ours to dole out. In times where I’ve wronged another and been made aware of it, the natural effect was that I suffered with guilt and other undesirable emotions like shame or embarrassment. Justice, in my opinion is hardwired into how we were created… into the laws of the universe and we do not need to help it along.
In fact, maybe by not helping justice along, we’d be seeing more kindness and more love in this world. Maybe we’d have a totally different society that did not operate on money, but on morals. Maybe we’d have communities that collectively looked out for the good of each individual who lived there. Maybe it’d be a world where there were no homeless because there wouldn’t be as much hurt to lead them into that place in their life. A world where there are no alcohol or drug problems because people aren’t running from their pain and instead realize the holiness of their temple. A world where people are free to create blessings that serve all as a result of their ability to retain their wholeness, which comes as a direct effect of the love they’ve been nurtured with by all who inhabit the space around them.
Maybe I am delusional, caught up in a utopic fantasy of the way the world could be in future generations. Alternatively, maybe I am onto something. I’d prefer to take my chances on the latter because not doing so is too costly for my daughter, her potential future children and theirs to follow.
What are your thoughts? Is a kinder and more loving world full of healed and whole people possible? If so, how do you see us getting there?
Also, this verse comes to mind in relation to those who thwart what it means to believe in God: Matthew 23:1-36