I just watched the Lifetime movie 'Prayers for Bobby' for the second time in two nights and I could not help but remember the trauma that I went through as a young man battling with being gay and a Christian and how irreconcilable those positions seemed to be. The story that was being told was one of a young life that was sacrificed, though the end result was that others were set free. Bobby took his own life because he could not face the rejection, couched in 'love', of his close-knit, Catholic family. Rejection is never love however because love, to be love, must be un-conditional. His family learned this, sadly, after his untimely death.
Our Christian teachings are wrong when they condemn a person for being who they are and for what they do. It is never right to try and change another's life. I really know that now as a spiritual principle. Why is what I do, I say, I think, I hope, I wish right or best for anyone but me? And why is what others do, others say, others think and others hope right or best for anyone else but them? Jesus reflects the loving and compassionate essence of a Universal God. Man has added his words to create a book, the Bible, that seeks to legislate a perceived 'way', to be the one and only right way to be. That folk have taken this as truth, without question, makes the Bible one of the most damaging books ever written. As a history book of the gradual development of God-consciousness it is without peer. Without LOVE there is nothing.
For most of my lifetime I have believed that notion of loving the sinner but not the sin. I now see that as false. Unconditional love is just that - a love that has no conditions and no requirements for it's dispensation. The sin and the sinner are one, and as one they are loved. For me or you to judge the actions of another completely ignores the example of Jesus who came to the rescue of a woman caught in the act of adultery who was about to be stoned to death, a consequence congruent with the law of the land - a law based on the unenlightened revelations of the Old Testament. He said to the assembled kangaroo court - 'Let him among you who is without sin cast the first stone'. Of course, no one moved!
Jesus knew that they had it all wrong. He understood the truth of the law of love. He was the enlightened one. They were still mired in the ignorance of partial understanding. Within a year or two they took his life instead and then his followers made it look like it was the plan all along so that the God of their limited understanding could forgive them . . . like Jesus was a necessary sacrifice to satisfy God's sense of justice! How sad that mankind transposed their own feeble notion of the requirements of forgiveness onto the Love Force of the Universe. What loving earthly father would require a recompensive sacrifice in order to forgive his children of anything?
Until Christendom is liberated from the Bible as a handbook, and begins to use it as a history book, the sins of the fathers will still be visited on the children. I am lucky that my dad loved me regardless of my actions and stood by me when others condemned me to hell. Bobby was not so fortunate. My dad reflects God's love because his love is unconditional. Who I am is more valuable to him than the collective misunderstanding of generations. His love for me is without condition, without judgement and requires no forgiveness to access. My mum is the same way. These folk have completely, and perhaps unwittingly overturned the teachings of the church as they have accepted me 'Just As I Am'.
I know that I have survived in order to be a light to shine into the darkness of the lives of those who have not experienced the 'Love That Will Not Let Me Go' - the love that binds us together and unites us as one across all the false barriers and separations that segregate us in the world today. I must let the wounded know that who they are is who they are meant to be. The actions that do harm to others are the ones that must be corrected, the nature of a person is without question something to be accepted and embraced, without comparison to standards and mores that are nothing more than attempts to create conformity for the purpose of control.
Who is to say that my life is any less important or valuable than that of any one else? Who is to say that it is wrong - or right? The only measure is if I love. Period. Like the song from the bohemian musical 'Rent' - we should measure a life in seasons of love. This too is the heartbeat of Christianity - too bad most Christians are stuck with a corpse. The risen Christ is alive in love and compassion.
With love, and in peace - Geoff
Our Christian teachings are wrong when they condemn a person for being who they are and for what they do. It is never right to try and change another's life. I really know that now as a spiritual principle. Why is what I do, I say, I think, I hope, I wish right or best for anyone but me? And why is what others do, others say, others think and others hope right or best for anyone else but them? Jesus reflects the loving and compassionate essence of a Universal God. Man has added his words to create a book, the Bible, that seeks to legislate a perceived 'way', to be the one and only right way to be. That folk have taken this as truth, without question, makes the Bible one of the most damaging books ever written. As a history book of the gradual development of God-consciousness it is without peer. Without LOVE there is nothing.
For most of my lifetime I have believed that notion of loving the sinner but not the sin. I now see that as false. Unconditional love is just that - a love that has no conditions and no requirements for it's dispensation. The sin and the sinner are one, and as one they are loved. For me or you to judge the actions of another completely ignores the example of Jesus who came to the rescue of a woman caught in the act of adultery who was about to be stoned to death, a consequence congruent with the law of the land - a law based on the unenlightened revelations of the Old Testament. He said to the assembled kangaroo court - 'Let him among you who is without sin cast the first stone'. Of course, no one moved!
Jesus knew that they had it all wrong. He understood the truth of the law of love. He was the enlightened one. They were still mired in the ignorance of partial understanding. Within a year or two they took his life instead and then his followers made it look like it was the plan all along so that the God of their limited understanding could forgive them . . . like Jesus was a necessary sacrifice to satisfy God's sense of justice! How sad that mankind transposed their own feeble notion of the requirements of forgiveness onto the Love Force of the Universe. What loving earthly father would require a recompensive sacrifice in order to forgive his children of anything?
Until Christendom is liberated from the Bible as a handbook, and begins to use it as a history book, the sins of the fathers will still be visited on the children. I am lucky that my dad loved me regardless of my actions and stood by me when others condemned me to hell. Bobby was not so fortunate. My dad reflects God's love because his love is unconditional. Who I am is more valuable to him than the collective misunderstanding of generations. His love for me is without condition, without judgement and requires no forgiveness to access. My mum is the same way. These folk have completely, and perhaps unwittingly overturned the teachings of the church as they have accepted me 'Just As I Am'.
I know that I have survived in order to be a light to shine into the darkness of the lives of those who have not experienced the 'Love That Will Not Let Me Go' - the love that binds us together and unites us as one across all the false barriers and separations that segregate us in the world today. I must let the wounded know that who they are is who they are meant to be. The actions that do harm to others are the ones that must be corrected, the nature of a person is without question something to be accepted and embraced, without comparison to standards and mores that are nothing more than attempts to create conformity for the purpose of control.
Who is to say that my life is any less important or valuable than that of any one else? Who is to say that it is wrong - or right? The only measure is if I love. Period. Like the song from the bohemian musical 'Rent' - we should measure a life in seasons of love. This too is the heartbeat of Christianity - too bad most Christians are stuck with a corpse. The risen Christ is alive in love and compassion.
With love, and in peace - Geoff
