By Amaya Gayle Gregory —
I don’t do Bible stuff. I walked away from that world years ago when I saw the hypocrisy, the disguised hate, the inbuilt need to feel special, chosen. I was just a teen when I realized that something was drastically wrong with the religion that I had been raised in, so imagine my surprise when this post flowed into words today.
Humans are tricky creatures. We can twist and turn our bad will, our anger and irritation, towards others into our own personal idol of gold, making us believe that what we are calling love, is actually love. We lose the thread, using love like a blowtorch to cut our way through the hard spots in life that resist our will. it doesn’t matter who gets burned. It’s love, after all.
Yeah … it is, for there’s nothing but love. And no, in the material appearing world, it isn’t. It’s distorted, messed about, misunderstood, an illusion colored by the fallacy of mind.
Mothers and fathers do it to their children: I am punishing my child to save them from greater harm … tough love is what love looks like … if I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t criticize or correct you. There are infinite ways to use the idea of love, to warp it into something that doesn’t even resemble love on its worst day.
It’s alchemy, only it doesn’t turn lead into gold. Nothing can alter love, love is love is love, but the bastardization does twist the mind, turning love’s actuality into a satanic belief. Satan is not some guy with horns, a devil in the sky. Satan is us when we separate ourselves from each other. If we want to banish Satan, we need to learn to love all inclusively.
Religions are as guilty as parents and in many cases taught the parents. They use different words, but the same tough love … love the sinner, hate the sin. There’s really not a lot of difference between that and parental tough love, tough love that comes with a belt, a strap, a locked door, silent treatment, love withheld, shunning, abuse … all names for control.
Whatever the words, they send a message, not a message of love, but one of judgement, one of conditions, one of unworthiness. There’s a reason we are so fu<ked up.
I’m not innocent. If only I was … but sadly, I am not. I’ve done so many things wrong on my very steep learning curve, things that hurt those I love, that hurt me too. I guess if I’d had it all figured out, I wouldn’t have incarnated into this life.
Raised in Christianity, I still remember the red-letter words, the words of Jesus, even though I walked away from the teachings when I was 16. To me, it seemed even then, like most of those sitting in the pews were Sunday Christians at best. I never quite trusted the focus on hell and brimstone, the long arc of judgement, the exclusive nature of God’s love.
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