Fulfilling the Law

People have been hurting me all my life in ways I could not acknowledge until now. I always judged people based on their motivations, their hearts, their reasons. I could see it. Often, they thought they were helping. Probably more often, they had their own traumas and past abuses that they never dealt with, and so they passed that on to me.

The saying goes that hurt people hurt people, and that’s true. I am sure that I hurt others in these times of grief, although that is not my intention and I carefully examine my actions to determine if they are overreactions to avoid hurting others as much as possible. I also have certain safe people to whom I vent my frustrations while avoiding loosing them on others who couldn’t handle the force of my pain and anger. I know I’m not perfect at choosing the healthiest of coping mechanisms, but I try.

Today I had a thought, though, about the intentions of the people who hurt me the most. Sometimes people hurt others unintentionally. But when you’ve gone to them repeatedly and told them that they are hurting you and they continue to do the very thing you told them has hurt you, is it still unintentional?

Again, I must examine the motivations of the person. Conflicting desires come into play. If one person wants one thing and I want the opposite, are they hurting me in pursuing their desire so long as they don’t try to force me out of my desire and into theirs? I’m sure at times compromise must be reached and both must give a little in their desires. But sometimes people have desires that they will pursue regardless of how much it hurts others. Is that wrong? Does it depend on the desire? You can’t live your life to avoid hurting others, but at the same time, you cannot pretend your desires matter above others all of the time. If this happens once or twice in a relationship, that relationship can still be healthy. The one who hurts others might even say, “I’m sorry. I know this is not what you want, but I feel I must pursue this.” Because no matter how worthy that desire is, there is still a hurt person who did not deserve to be hurt in the picture, and that also has to be acknowledged.

At the same time, if someone repeatedly hurts another by choosing his desires over that person, then this relationship is unhealthy. Other steps might need to be taken in order to avoid systematic abuse. It is here that the thoughts of “intentional” versus “unintentional” come into play.  A person might have pure motivation for this other desire, and this person might think they must pursue it with all their heart. And yet, in so doing, they know they are hurting you.

I’ve had people hurt me repeatedly because they thought they had to in order to help me. External ideas of what they should do or should believe motivated them to try to confine me into those same ideas of which they were prisoner. Religion is a prime example of this because it tells you that you have to behave a certain way toward those who aren’t measuring up to that religion’s checklist of what it says God wants. Religion is dishonoring the divine in others. It is taking another human expression of divinity and killing it so that it can conform to an external ideal of what “right” is. Religion always hurts others. And yet some of the most good-hearted and well-intentioned people I know think that this curtailing of expression into a limited mold is the best thing for that person. They zealously pursue this desire to conform because they think it is “right;” they think it is what Yahweh God Himself is telling them to do. They are, in fact, in bondage to this conformity, and there is really no way to convince them that they’re not prisoners until they discover it for themselves. Religion turns you from a divine expression of Yahweh to a person who must hurt others in order to be considered righteous. While simultaneously proclaiming unconditional Love, it sets a stringent list of conditions and regulations upon expressed Love to the point where you can be totally rejected and ostracized if you do not conform. The Amish shunning is one example of this, although there are many more.

I spent 29 years as a Christian, and then Yahweh began to lead me out of that religious box into a wider expression of Him, one that can love others without agenda. While I was a Christian, nobody could convince me that I was hurting others by telling them they were inherently bad people, sinners who were going to Hell if they did not change their ways. I believed this of myself, so how could I believe anything else of others? I thought I was helping them by demanding they make better, less sinful choices and conform to the belief system that would give them a ticket to Heaven. I thought I was saving them, when all the time, I was killing the expression of Yahweh that existed within them or causing them excruciating pain by not valuing that expression enough to nurture and enjoy it.

Now that I’ve grown beyond this aspect of Christianity, I am able to truly fulfill the law, as Yahshua said. I am able to love unconditionally without trying to force others into my belief system and without judging and shunning them because they do not make choices with which I agree.

Ironically, you cannot receive Christianity’s promise of unconditional Love until you grow beyond the very thing that promised it to you. You cannot give Christianity’s promise of unconditional Love until you are no longer in bondage to that religion. Or perhaps, in truth, the Promise never came from Christianity at all. Perhaps all along this Promise was from Christ Himself, who was always the fulfillment of the law, and who never was a Christian.

This is not to say that people who are freed from the bondages of religion don’t still hurt others. That will happen, yes. But religion is a system and culture that is built upon hurting others. It is my hope that hurting others will become less systematic and repetitive once we have been able to burn the box of religion and grow into a healthier acceptance of self and each other. Namaste.