Fueled by Anger and Directed by Intentions

If you are honestly struggling with a question of should I deny services to another based on their belief or lack thereof. If you see it as a moral question where on one side you know murder is wrong and on the other something inside of you says it is just as wrong to legislate freewill. You are not alone. If you are actually concerned that supporting either position could lead to you dishonoring or disobeying that which you seek for redemption. Just keep reading along and I will tell you about the time I faced the same thing. If you are here to argue a point there are plenty of people that will take the time to disagree with you.

I am going to stick to what I know. Many years ago I faithfully attended a local "Pentecostal" Church. I was there every time the doors were opened and sometimes when they weren't. I believed in it all with no reservations and I also believed I was in some way special. I had decided that through prayer and study none of the secrets of the universe would be hidden from me. My habit at that time was to read. I did a lot of it. I never really studied the NIV version of the Holy Bible. Nope, I would just decide what I was going to read that day and lose hours to it. Sooner or later I would stumble onto the answer in the form of the perfect scripture. This was what I did every day, as well as a lot of prayers.

I remember there was I bid to in the news. It was an election of some type that could decide the fate of millions of unborn babies. The Church I attended was not shy about telling you what they thought was right. And I am not trying to say they were wrong either. The pastor was a level headed man with a loving family, and a busy church. He was not overly mean to but he didn't tell you pretty things when strong words were needed. Nope, from the pulpit, he delivered the same message he lived. And you knew that he loved everyone like family. I remember him telling us that abortion was bad. These days I don't remember if he called it murder. But I can attest to the fact that he was ready to see the laws change, and he told us about it.

It wasn't just from the pulpit in those days that you heard about the abortion issue. Where two or three gathered if they had not previously broached the topic you could bet they would. Looking back I know I was not the only one that was trying to resolve two core values that conflicted. By the frequency that other people wanted to discuss their ideas, I would dare to say that a majority of parishioners had similar unresolved questions. Throughout my life, I can remember the times when various concepts grabbed me. I would think about those things, do a lot of reading and just as much praying until it let go of me.

Shortly before abortion became a hot topic, there was a very special word tagging along with me. Freewill, the God-given right of humanity to decide their own fate. It never strayed far from my thoughts both then and up to now. It was always waiting for the opportunity to impart its wisdom into my life and the world around me. As we made our paths in this world, it was both my desire and my teacher. I knew I had never been free and the kind of stuck I was wasn't just a Saturday prayer meeting event. The is the real bad stuff here that gripped the mind and heart and no matter how many times you beat it back it was coming back.

I can remember some long dark nights that were very proficient in stealing my sleep. I loved God but not quite as much as I feared him. I knew that I was a sinner in his eyes. I also knew that he sent sinners to hell. The problem I faced was the fact that for the 10 years prior to this time I didn't even know I wanted to teach my cranial nature to submit to my will. It was the complete opposite in fact. I had always been a strong-willed child and that will be a tool of my desires. Its strength would see me through the times I had gone too far afoot chasing whatever it was that was going to make me feel good. When I decided to swap out the reigns I found that the strength of my will was a hindrance. It amplified the desire to sin by at least two full magnitudes and set up what could only be explained as spiritual feedback which made my will useless. I really was a mess but I was a happy, scared mess with thee pending wrath of god acting both as a searchlight and a motivator. The wrath of God was ever-present in those first months.

But with time and persistence, an old man will look back on his past and see it for its truth. And looking back he will see things that at the time meant little. Now they carry their own meaning now. They were planted as a young man and in full maturity, they were ready to harvest. That young man was so afraid that he was going to fail but I know I was never in any danger. What felt then like the impossible was really just like the endurance training of an athlete. I was in training to be a long-distance spiritual athlete. That training wasn't that I would have the strength on that day. It was to see me through times that would come that then I could not even imagine. I was also at that time that I was taught, love.

That is another word that never leaves you. My teachers were motley crew who had lived life and in the living learned how to restore their marriage or fight cancer or a number of other terrible things. One day a Widower asked me if I could start to maintain her yard. She had plenty of things she wanted to have done. I started going over to her house a couple of days a week. Then someone else would tell me they heard I was a handyman. My days started feeling up. as I was commissioned by more and more people to glaze windows and hang bird feeders. I learned what it was to be loved unconditionally in that two year time. And as I worked, I grew in strength. As I was loved I learned why I was never destined to fail. It was not by the whip of a tyrant god that I changed. But by the leading of a caring father who desired to spend time with me. For those years I went to cookouts and campouts. I learned how to connect with people.

I had become so much more after that time. But one thing is unmistakable. We are not taught these things just for the sake of learning. Each shill and understand became a tool. Some protected me where others gave me the strength to carry on. And with the tools, the struggles were greater. They took everything I knew. Every tool I use had been resharpened one hundred times. But I always had just enough to make it through. Or I found more along the way. If you will excuse my pride, I was turning into a real badass. I was free with an understanding of free will. I could almost sense my path before me. An unseen force was ever-present. I know I was where I was supposed to be.

The first time in this new life I heard about abortion was during a special day with one of the pastors' friends delivering the message. He was also a pastor from somewhere down south. It was June of an election year. The media was all over the fact that the November elections could affect the legality of abortion. To be honest I hadn't made the connection until I hear that preacher talk about the sacrifice of children, murdered for no other reason then someone didn't want to raise them. That was what hurt so bad. I knew what it was like to feel unwanted. It wasn't for another month and a half that I first saw the problem I now faced. I had adopted two core beliefs that were at war with each other. Imagine if you will two large spots of energy that are equally sized. Each having countless tentacles coming out and tangling with the other. My task was to understand how hey could possibly fit together.

On that day freewill reminded me of the importance of choice. It revealed to me the depth of the choice given to all of us. The importance of its design.

I understand that every day you are forced to see unspeakable things. I have been to that place where you feel like you are losing an unseen war that is costing the eternal parts of friends, family, and strangers alike. I have been pressured to do something I didn't agree with. But I ask you to please consider the following.

Every person deserves a special measure of respect that is not dependent on anything except the fact that they exist. It is stored in a secret place, invisible, insulated, and separated from the world we know. Immune to tarnish, safe from theft, and free from any tolls imposed by failure. Its importance is unknown by market value, it can not be bartered with or sold.

Though we could never point to its location, we know it is there. Glimpsed as a reflection in the faces of our children. Sensed in the touch of our loved ones, and ignored in our foe. Yet, if we resist our lessor nature, striving to understand what is just. We will see it in the criminal and lament the loss in their death. It is perfection, just out of sight, the spirit of a god, and the soul of humanity.

I am no stranger to confusion, and I am not free from my faults. Their remembrance is magnified by their volume. Yet my humanity reminds me I have worth that can not be lost or taken. But in the middle of what we know to be life lost in the hours and days. We sometimes lose sight of who we are and our emotions fabricate lies we believe.

Their irreverence to our beliefs is mistaken by our pride as insolence to the sacred and the authority we have given it. With the force of our lesser nature, we strike out to return from them what they have taken. And in anger, we take from them the only payment reasonable. But because we no longer see the measure of respect given to all people their total value is reduced to nothing. They become only a lifeless object. As inconsequential to us as a broken toaster we no longer have any moral obligation to humanity.

The damage is done in an instant. If they will not respect my authority, I will nor respect them as a person. And with this justification, we become numb to the severity of our actions. A numbness that will wear off after a time. This separation acts as insulation reducing the pain of our action on our-self to sustainable levels until it is accepted and ignored.

I believe this is what happens when someone with a strong desire to honor their faith is forced to decide between their loyalty to the sacred authority or one that is perceived to attack their core belief. They stand strong through great adversity to defend the sacred the entire time seeing it just. This allows even honest people to make decisions that allow the denial of support or service to another because of their core belief or lifestyle.

In the end, with patience and time, I believe we will get to the destination we have chosen. But we are going to get confused and lost on the way.