Dudes!!

What better day than Christmas to talk about unconditional love? Yes. I know not everyone believes in Jesus or even likes him. That’s absolutely everyone’s right. And God knows that more than a shit ton of horrible things have been done in his name to not help.

Yup. Some folks have hijacked his message to behave like raving assholes and do unspeakable acts.

EXCEPT

That’s on them rather than Jesus no matter how much they deny it.

Why?

Each and everyone of us has free will. I say this is given to us by God. Let me explain:

If God were to force you to love Him, it would be coercion rather than love. Cuz yes – The Crusades were never about God or God’s will. They were about ego glorification and subjugation.

The conventional wisdom flip side of unconditional love is the belief that we must tolerate everything that folks throw at us.

And it’s that we must somehow carry their shit cuz we love them. Yes. Everyone needs help now and again. It’s absolutely okay to get and give help. Giving grace also needs to be included in this section. I’m asking to rethink about how much of ourselves that we must deny in order to help others.

Simple: If someone wants you to deny your own needs in service to them? They don’t have your best interests in their hearts: It’s all about them. This is also true of institutions that do this. An example is this ritual pray sometimes done in the Catholic Church: We all stand up and pound our chest while crying about all things being our fault. Taking responsibility for your actions is far different than blaming yourself for them. This disconnect can distort one’s view of themselves. And if people are upset with themselves? By George – they’re much easier to manipulate.

Even if the ends are meant to be good, the methods count too. What’s the old saying? We’re doing this for your own good? Bahaha!?!

I know this is heavy for Christmas. And this is by design:

How did Jesus’s ideas of free will, unconditional love, and not judging lest we be judged get so twisted up? And how did religious ideas get so distorted that the very things made in God’s image must deny everything about themselves in order to serve some dudes’ version of God? I would think that God gave us all our different talents to light up the world in how we choose rather than be mindless drones spouting Godless doctrine.

Why yes… I believe unconditional love is the foundation for everything. Yes. It’s easy to love those in agreement with us and get along with. They’re not the only ones that we’re called to love: it’s the folks that we hate, disagree with, and ones who hurt us for we can judge all we want EXCEPT we have no idea what’s happening with anyone else.: We are all in different places around healing for a myriad of factors.

And part of having unconditional love is the ability to say no for we are all sovereign beings with our own agency governed by our own free will.

Yup. Father Mike said it well when he said that the one condition to unconditional love is our willingness to accept it. This is a tall order. And it’s also why I left the Catholic Church earlier this year cuz I don’t believe many of their practices are aligned with this foundation: they attempt to play God rather than practice his wisdom.

I’m absolutely still happy that I have an imperfect tattooed on my left forearm. I also believe that living in a world of free will, unconditional love, and not judging lest we be judged are good principles for life. This is whether you believe in Jesus or not, And I’m adding one more to this: Living in a state of gratitude. Of course the idea of giving grace needs to be embedded as long as it’s about giving actual grace instead of making excuses.

As I work on living in these more and more, I feel calmer and freer. Such an incredible gift. So, I want to honor it on today.

May this find you well.

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