Searching for Real Atonement

We all search for atonement. Maybe not all the time. But you do something you swore you wouldn’t. Something that you didn’t even realize you did until it was too late. And shame sets in. There is no way to make it right. No way to take back what was said or done. The reaction is our desire for atonement. Our desire to make it right. Our desire to forget. Everyone’s search is not the same some hide, dispel reality through movies and books, write, run. Some blog. We donate to charity. We do something that hurts us in order to somehow atone for what was done to feel the pain like we inflicted.

And for a little while it seems to work. We can forget reality, what was done. We have made up for our own mistakes. We can make our problems disappear or at least make up for them.

But the relief is fleeting.

This type of atonement is not real. It is the fiction that we momentarily have to believe in order to continue.

I don’t know that everyone experiences this. I have never asked. But I have to believe that this is something we all experience, search for and fight. I know I do. I cannot believe it is just me. Something about it seems to be too…human, for it to be something only I search for.

We cannot make our own atonement. Yet we keep running to these things, trying new options and combinations. At the end of it reality always comes back. We must still live and deal with what was done.

We are filled with the potential for good and evil. Solzhenitsyn thought that the dividing line of good and evil was not us and them, but through the center of all of us. Humanity is fallible, but it is what we do with our fallibility that defines us.

At some point we have to stop running. We have to face our faults and each other. Life is not about covering our shame with pills. We need to stop believing that a perfect façade means a perfect life, and that that kind of perfection is desirable. Until we are willing to be honest with each other we will not find earthly atonement.

It is only through brokenness that we can find real atonement. Not the kind that comes from ourselves.  There cannot be forgiveness where it is not asked.

Maybe if we began to offer real forgiveness to each other. Maybe if we began to offer real acceptance with dignity. Then maybe would we not only find something closer to wholeness on earth, but begin to really believe the offer of Divine atonement in way that radically changes life.

… and to think we still claim the greatness of our society and culture.

Truth of Kindness

First off, I want to say I’m all for honesty. I think there are too many situations we have created where truth has not been spoken. Ultimate love takes truth. Love is often speaking truth where no one else will. However, I think too many of us in my generation have jumped on the honesty bandwagon and forgotten the beauty of kindness. Being honest is not mutually exclusive to being kind.

In fact, the best honesty is spoken with kindness, love allows no other way.

I don’t often advocate for sugar-coating tough truths, that often makes them even more difficult to handle. And this is not me pushing for a sugar-coated world. It is me saying we need to consider the dignity of others in our speech and action.

Many people are striving to be so ‘real’ with others that they forget that everyone has feelings that must be accounted for. This is not to baby a person, but when giving an opinion that may be harsh there are kind and cruel ways to do. Let us not continue to confuse honesty and cruelty.

We need honesty. There is often so little of it in our conversations and culture. Our need for honesty does not justify us treating others as if their thoughts and needs did not matter.

We are taught kindness in kindergarten, and like many of the other seemingly simple kindergarten lessons it is for a reason. Kindness is important. However, kindness to those we do not like can be an agonizing task. A worthwhile task, but a difficult one. We are often remembered by our choices in terms of kindness. Emma Woodhouse has undergone condemnation for generations because of her one major unkind act.

Even if you do not particularly like or love a person or their actions that does not excuse unkindness. We are all human beings innately deserving of dignity and decency. Believing anything else allows for atrocities of cruelest degree. There is enough wrong with our world that we do not need to add our own pettiness to it. Leave the manipulations and cruelty to middle school girls. And let our words be filled with truth in kindness.

Let us speak truth in all we say. But also allow all we say to reflect our love.

Overcoming Pride for the Beauty of Real Love

Okay so we all know that pride is bad. I mean it is in nearly every piece of decent literature and something you have likely been told since you could walk. It is important knowledge, I’m not going to knock that or try to disagree with Milton, Spenser etc. (I mean seriously what would the point be of disagreeing with them, automatic incorrect.) But it is deeper than that. 

Pride keeps us from being able to love each other. We allow our pride to become more important than the beautiful and desperate person sitting in front of us. We have disagreements with friends and family that take a toll on our pride and then lose them and the opportunity to love. All for what? The ability to say that we might have been right?

Don’t get me wrong, we need to be able to speak truth and have honest conversations.  But we should never allow our pride to overrule our love. That is tragedy. The fact that we don’t even realize that is the reality more often than is one of the tragedies that marks humankind.

It does not end have to end there though. Tragedy is always a choice and in this life we can choose our own endings. And the solution is real love.

Real love has very little to do with the feelings that we usually associate with love. This kind of love is not feeling swoony when you are near your crush. Or what the movies show. There is not anything inherently wrong with these feelings of affection. But do not mistake them for love.  

Real love is wanting the other person’s best interest, even if it hurts you. Real love is when you do something that you would rather not do, because you know it will make the person you love happy and make their life better. Real love is rarely demonstrated in times when life is easy. Love comes through in tough times, the desire to stick by someone no matter what happens. This is not necessarily romantic love, but love for anyone.

This kind of love is hard. It takes work to really love a person. You have to deal with the messiness of life. Love does not allow relationships to stay at a surface level. It is much easier and prideful to not love this way, but without it life is not worth it.

It is this kind of love that becomes impossible with our blinding pride. To not love this way is a kind of pride. It tells others that they are disposable. People are never disposable. People are not meant to exist in the isolation created by pride. Pride keeps us from truly connecting with others. We need to stop being so concerned about not being perfect and more concerned with the well-being of others.  

 Life is messy for all of us.

When we would rather save face than be honest and vulnerable – we lose. This is no ordinary loss, it is a type of loss more tragic than we usually encounter in other circumstances. Not only do we hurt ourselves by this kind of choice, we hurt everyone around us. We disengage from the ability to truly love others.  People lose the love they so desperately want and need from you and in turn you also lose out on those relationships. A vicious and painful cycle.

Life is not about appearances. We place so much emphasis and pride on what people may or may not think of us that we allow our value to become surface level, rather than search for depth. There is so much more in this life that is more valuable than outward appearances. Move on.

Be willing to be wrong. Accept that someone else may not view life as you do. It is only through this kind of connection that we can truly understand each other.

“It's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life. It's easier to steal what you want than it is to earn it. It's easier to beat a child than it is to raise it. Hell, love costs: it takes effort and work.”  - Morgan Freeman in Seven

Losing Life Expecations

There are very few days where I would not give an awful lot to have two parents who love me. However, that is not the case. We do not always get want we want in life . . . or what we deserve.  We then are given a choice: we can either live only within the disappointment of what we believe is owed to us by others and a Higher Being, or we can move past our expectations. By moving past our expectations of what we should have in life we are able to see the beauty, grace and mercy that God has given us in ways we might never have expected. 

I think it often our own selfish expectations of what should or should not be that keep us from living a happy full life. It is not that we have been cosmically jipped and therefore cannot truly experience the depth of life. Usually it is what we do not expect that surpasses our original desires, and expectations.

I could stay mad for quite some time because I drew the short-straw in the father lottery, or I could move past my expectation of having two loving parents and into the knowledge of those that do care about me. I may not have two loving parents, but my mom is one of my best friends. I doubt very many people are able to accurately make that statement at my age, or any age for that matter. I also may not have hundreds of friends, but those that I do have would stick with me no matter what – always desiring my best interest, rather than some silly drama game they decided to create. Another statement that I sadly doubt the majority of people could make at any age. 

Rarely does anyone end up with the 2-story house with the white picket fence, 2.5 kids, a dog and pearls – the perfect life. Life is not about getting what we expect and for some reason think we deserve. It is much more about taking the hand we have all been given and learning to live from there. 

I cannot control the choices of others (as much as I wish I could some days). I must learn to live with their choices and hope that they are able to do the same. However, I do get to make my choices one of which is perception and another of which is attitude. The latter is discussed in every stereotypical quote and while true I will trust your previous knowledge on that subject will suffice (at least for now).

The key is in perception. I can perceive my life ruined, because the house does not come with the white picket fence, or I can realize that I have the kindest neighbors in the world. The fence would have only kept neighbors away, while the lack of fence allows me to cultivate a meaningful relationship. Same coin, two sides. 

When we allow ourselves to move past the hurt of disappointment and lost expectations, it is then that we can truly see the blessings in our life for what they are. 

Do yourself (and those around you) a favor: Stop holding on to expectations in life of what is owed to you, and rather enjoy the life you have been given – good and bad. 

“Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.”