Heresy? Common Sense?

 

There is a reason I keep talking about the developmental periods of children. There is a reason this is so important. Who is judging between traumas? Between sufferings? Just a pondering. As a comparison. Someone in a car accident who gets pretty banged up but who has had a childhood of love and peace. They’re able to navigate safely through the world, their own emotions and thoughts and fresh traumas (though they may be large) are reasonably well processed and filed away in the mind. And another who experienced hell growing up, raped daily and beaten, never having developed that base of grounding in life. Think of a soul as a cup or a well. Imagine you have this well. Now, that well, in the beginning is filled to the brim with very clear and clean water. But, as time passes, things happen to that well. People drink from it, things happen around it and things drop into it. As time passes, the water that was at first so clean, so clear becomes muddied and dirty. Now, what happens when you try to push that mud to the bottom to allot for clean water to rise to the surface? Remaining, you still have muddy water because the mud has only been pushed to the bottom of the well. It’s like having oil on the surface of a well and trying to push the oil to the bottom. No matter what you do, the oil will rise again to the top. In a similar way, the human heart is so precious, so fragile. Sometimes falling into sin is not a consciously willful choice that is thought over in a logical manner, but rather the re-emergence of the defense mechanisms we have used in childhood just to survive. “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you – be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you” (Luke 11:39). What we put into our hearts is not always a choice that we make.The human heart, everything about our bodies has an innate sense of remembering in the ways that serve it best, the trauma and pain as well as the love and joy that we have experienced. Because just like when we are cut, blood follows, emotions are natural responses to being hurt inwardly. Do not be ashamed of your feelings. Do not be ashamed to cry and to comfort each other when it is warranted. It is so important to express righteous anger in healthy ways so that your cup does not overflow. We need to learn to love ourselves. For in the expression of love for ourselves, we are able to understand the concept of unconditional love and thereby offer our love where it deserves to be. In feeling love for who we are as individuals, we are able to love God and to love others. There is a reason for everything we do.

Have you ever had the experience as a child, when you get hurt emotionally; someone insults you or betrays you, feeling that all you need to do is to cry, to release the hurt? And when you do, when you’re offered the chance to, everything seemed to return to normal and you could be happy again. As we get older, we can allow these hurts to get stuck as they accumulate. We need to release the pain and shame. And we need to replace this pain with the love that is found in the Gospel. We need to do that to make the transformation.

Healing from abuse is not something that happens overnight. In many cases, it is a lifelong process. My brain was pretty hurt, too. I have noticed myself come very far from before I started healing. Relational and emotional wounds can be as serious as losing a limb. I’ve proved pretty clearly I think, by the life that I have lived, that I am pretty hurt. It is unfair that I am still being tempted with the accumulation of trauma from my childhood and adolescence. I’m trying harder than a lot of people realize. I’m not crazy. If I am, what should it matter what I say? I’m only speaking what I have seen and been told. We need to look at things with compassion and love.

There’s all sorts of trauma in the world. There is a lot of literature written towards traumatic reaction obtained through a single event. It is different from complex trauma that extends for years and where there is little chance of escape. Early trauma hardwires our nervous systems for stress. Trauma accumulates. “When our foundations are wrought with unprocessed injustice and feelings, this makes it more difficult to deal with injustices later. When our foundations are wrought with unprocessed trauma and feelings, this makes it more difficult to deal with everything that happens to confront us. It is when we have been able to process this trauma and injustice that great things are in sight.”

Trauma accumulates. Shame and other bad feelings accumulate. Injustice and anger also accumulate. That bully from high school for whom you have been holding resentment, possibly reasonably – well, at home, his parents beat him nightly. This is said to illustrate there is a lot more going on than what we can see. Is it an excuse that he perpetuate this anger? Probably not. Said to illustrate the fact that in a lot of cases, he is a kid too. And he’s probably going through this as he is acting out. But, it’s much more common than we think. This is not a dualistic message. The body and the spirit work in harmony… when one is damaged, the other will be affected. What I am saying is that when one is damaged, we need to heal it in love of the Spirit. It is catechetical that some sins are more or less culpable based on a number of factors.

I don’t think it is a secret that I am a Christian man. I’m not trying to convert anyone. Only seeking to share what my gentle and beautiful God has done for me. The words of the prophets all pointed to the Messiah of Love. “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The God of all religions is the God of Love. Jesus is the Messiah of Love. There is a god of this world. That is the one who causes pain and hurt and death and darkness. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” Therefore all who trust in love, follow God and His Christ. In my opinion. The purpose of this life is to find God. We are not living this life for this life. But for Life. Therefore, our times are investment. To live our best, to love. God wants us to enjoy our lives. Of course, there is more to the story than simply an image of a manicheanistic universe. There are many different facets to consider in this issue, particularly when it relates to the consideration of human and divine activity and their relation. But, this concept is very scriptural. The principalities involved in this concept are not equal. As God, the Father will always be greater. He is the only Creator and everything is in His control, even if it is against His great Will. Satan is called the father of lies. God the Father has distanced Himself from intervention in worldly affairs due to our choice of original sin. This does not mean He does not care for us. It breaks His heart when we are hurt. But, in His glory, He is able to utilize our wounds for His glory. Though, God the Father will have the judgement of this world, through His Son, Jesus Christ, the world is not reigned by Him, on a temporal level. This is in order to allow us in our free will, to return to Him, to love Him and to choose Him.

I am traumatized. This that hinders my true expression of my soul. Is this not what I have been saying from the start? We need to nurture our foundations. This is the reason I have been talking since I wrote this book about what needs to happen for the blessing that will come. Friends, I am not trying to prove my politics. Only that children need love in their developments, trauma accumulates and how to heal from these repressed memories.

I’m not trying to excuse bad behavior. Of course we know right from wrong. Our consciences, though, can be played upon and manipulated by our hurts. They are greatly influenced by the choices we make in past. I’m saying that our consciences can be shaped, as young children by what we are put through. Or rather, our choices can be heavily influenced by the weight of hurt and pain, unprocessed on our soul. And by those who influence us most

Evidence is where you search for it. Nobody remembers. But there are other evidences. The symptoms are all there. The body doesn’t lie. I have been conditioned.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, whether the ideology be individual or collective, is not the Christian way.

Think for yourself. This, too can be considered a great virtue these days. When you are thinking, use reason, not feeling.