Dedications

PRAYER
All steps, all moves, each spoon lifted
to the mouth, every said word, all thought

Kevin Benzer

It's easy to be rude and say the wrong things when you're in a bad mood or when you're upset or uncomfortable or feeling tired. I apologise again to the various people who've been on the receiving end.

Sometimes it just feels as though all your negative thoughts, feelings and disillusionment with people is just lying dormant in your mind, ready to burst out and explode at any moment. It feels really awful to know you are capable of such thoughts.

Sounds very un-PR doesn't it? Well the facts first. Nobody's perfect. Hardly the case. The more you know people the more peeves and flaws you'd see about them. Universal truth that everyone agrees with. So, first of all, recognition of people's flaws is about being honest.

If you ask me, I think just smiling and shoving what you think under the carpet and pretending everything's okay is even worse. And I realise that I do that with people I don't care about. Which is a horrible shame that's even worse.

Secondly, is to remember you're in the same boat, only thing being is you can't see your flaws by yourself. You depend on your real friends to tell you.

Thirdly, is not to dwell on them for too long, to use them to feed or justify your anger or bitterness. That would be hatred. But forgive. Easy to say, hard to do. But try. Every effort you make brings you closer.

People are to be encouraged to be honest with their own flaws. And after all for fellow Christians the imperative is from Christ to self-examine our actions and our value system.

For the rest... well maybe just try to be a better person? Although I cannot understand from whom or what source can you learn how to strive to that goal of being more like...
something's amiss here...

You don't even know what you want to become.

Sometimes when non-Christian friends talk to me I wish I could give advice and sometimes I do, but I realise they won't be able to follow it or it would be pointless to them because they have no real reason to - unless of course just to please me. Which doesn't work because the basis isn't right and when it isn't right, it either won't last very long or will last until something else more attractive-sounding comes along.

So there is a fundamental difference in value system and world-view. But nevertheless constant encouragement is still good. Love thy neighbour. You have to start somewhere.

There's a poem that illustrates what I'm trying to say. This is the second half of the poem, and the "him" refers to the kidnapper who has abducted and held hostage the author of the poem.

...
I know too well the darker urges in myself,
the violence and selfishness.
I've seen little in him I can't recognize.
I also know my mind would shatter,
my soul would die if I did the things he does.
I'm tempted to believe there really is
a devil in him, some malefic,
independent force that makes him
less or other than a man.
That's too easy and too dangerous an answer;
it's how so many evils come to be.
I must reject, abhor and fight against
these acts, and acknowledge that
they're not inhuman - just the opposite.
We can't separate the things
we do from what we are;
Hate the sin and love the sinner is not
a concept I'll ever really understand.
I'll never love him - I'm not Christ.
But I'll try to achieve forgiveness
because I know that in the end,
as always, Christ was right.

from "Satan" by Terry Anderson

...how badly we need to be honest with ourselves sometimes...