My Own "Feeling The Hate"

Crossposted from Truth and Love After 40:

When the idea for Blogging For Truth came to me, that maybe we should discuss what the hate really does, I didn't realize at the time, but I was going through a season that was the direct result of "feeling the hate." I started to notice the loudest, cruelest, most violent voices against the entire LGBTQ community were coming from my so called fellow Christians.

I am a firm believer that God is always our defense. But I forgot I believed that for a while. I forgot to keep my eyes on the Lord, and instead started looking at the faces who where shouting at us the loudest.

I listened to their voices and not God's. I watched their faces twisted in hate and not God's. I took in their words and not God's and because of this I began to doubt in God, because God was starting to look a lot like Maggie Gallagher.

I started to think that all Christians were like that, and if they were and we are to "know them by their fruits," then all of religion was fetid fruit indeed. For the first time since I first really, really believed in 1973, I began to question if there even was a God above. I started to respond to the hate with hate in my own heart. I couldn't think clearly, I felt depressed and I didn't know why I felt so angry about everything all the time.

Because I wasn't listening anymore to God, but the voices of hate around me, in the news, on the TV, blogs, online news outlets, and You Tube, He had to speak to me in other ways. I started getting books to work on with titles like "How God Changes Your Brain" by neurosurgeon, Andrew Newberg, M. D. and "A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story" by Diana Butler Bass. Then, I ran across something I had never seen before, called The Didache and finally He took me back to SisterFriends Together, specifically to a post called More Jesus, Less Religion. And He spoke to me through Lorrie more often than she will ever know, because He knows I can't help but listen to her.

The Didache I came across early in the winter, it is THE early new testament. It was handed out to nearly every new convert during the first few centuries. It was either written by or dictated by the Apostolic Fathers in common. It has never been disputed as authentic cannon but had not been chosen to be included in what we now call "The Bible" because many believed it was inelegant and had been widely distributed already. It is everything the Christian way of life was supposed to be.

The major point in How God Changes Your Brain, to me, was when Dr. Newberg explains how much believing in God and worship, and meditation on God improves our mental well being, functions and overall health. That certain areas of our brain actually grow, our reasoning functions and higher thinking abilities increase in other positive areas. He shows how there are measurable physical differences between believers and non believers and how people who are religious and who hate, suffer actual brain damage. Irreversible brain damage. The hate damages core areas in the brain that are needed for reason and higher thinking. I have always believed God speaks to each of us in ways that will personally touch us. ( or get through our thick skulls?) This book spoke volumes to me, not the least being I better let go of the hate before it was too late.

What I read in A People's History of Christianity reminded me that believing in Jesus is a way of life, that there is a whole history of "after" Jesus that as a people we have forgotten and that Jesus' teachings have always been inclusive, enlightened, personal and most assuredly revolutionary. It isn't the Systems of Belief that are preached from many a pulpit, it is about a simple way of life that is highly spiritual, loving, sometimes difficult and always committed.

Lastly I came upon the post "More Jesus, Less Religion." In it, Anita says nearly the same thing about the way of life and she says: "So this is my year to walk a new path, to take the fork in the road; not away from God but away from name-brand Christianity, a Christianity that has become a distraction and obstacle to experiencing an authentic encounter with God and engaging in a life of radical grace and love that was and remains the watermark of the earthly life of Jesus, the Son of God. -- During this year I’m choosing to no longer self-identify as a Christian but as a follower of Jesus. Before the early Christians were known as Christians they were called the People of the Way."

It seems it isn't my year to walk away from God either, but to start following The Way, and I think after escaping the hate, I can see how easy it is to fall into that never ending cycle of it.

I am so thankful that it is "....the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent." (John 6:29), because otherwise I think I would have lost to and been consumed by the hate. I am thankful because He is faithful even when those who call themselves by His name are not, I am thankful He knows how to talk to me even when I am hard hearted (and headed) and don't want to listen, I am grateful He gave me Lorrie to listen to, learn from, to love and be loved by.

Psalm 91 [personalized]

She who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the LORD,
“He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”
He will cover me with his feathers,
and under his wings I will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be my shield and rampart.
I will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.

If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge-
then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
“Because she loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue her;
I will protect her, for she acknowledges my name.
She will call upon me, and I will answer her;
I will be with her in trouble,
I will deliver her and honor her.
With long life will I satisfy her
and show her my salvation.”