In terms of Holly’s comment that her parody video “wasn’t exactly loving,” I think what really matters is that it wasn’t made out of malice, and it also seemed like a relatively benign way to release some feelings of anger and hatred rather than letting them sit and curdle into something much more dangerous and ugly. I don’t think most (or any?) of us can truly control the emotions we feel, but we can exert some control over how we let those emotions shape our identities and our actions.
For me, avoiding hatred and trying to love my enemies is a matter of self-care. I try to rein in my feelings of anger and hatred because I don’t like the sort of person I become when I let myself seethe with rage or simmer with hatred. And while I may not be able to truly love my enemies, I prefer who I am and how I feel when I’m extending grace to others and trying to focus on our shared humanity. If I’m being perfectly honest, there’s also an element of obstinacy or contrariness involved in all this: when other people are being shitty, I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of eliciting shitty behavior from me in return.
There are a couple of quotes I like that address this idea of avoiding hate/anger/resentment in order to preserve one’s well-being:
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." (Mark Twain)
“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” (Nelson Mandela)
ETA: if I didn’t make it clear, anger is not inherently bad. We should be furious about what’s happening with ICE right now. Anger can help us do productive things like lead us to step up and fight injustice. It’s when the anger festers into something much uglier and starts to warp you inside that it gets dangerous. It’s the same with most of the “bad” emotions (anger, fear, jealousy, guilt, shame, etc) - they can and do serve an important purpose, but they become harmful when they are left to grow unchecked. Or at least that’s the way I view it. I’m super sleep deprived right now, so hopefully what I’ve written makes at least a tiny bit of sense…
There is a difference between in Christianson than the essential roots of Jesus teaching. This always leads me to asking the question what would Jesus do? Clearly there are a lot of churches that don’t follow that question. Churches today should not tell you how to behave and allow you to question and grow and find your way back to the very early tenants of Christianity and try to answer the question. What would Jesus do? I struggle with this daily
Great job on the parody video!
In terms of Holly’s comment that her parody video “wasn’t exactly loving,” I think what really matters is that it wasn’t made out of malice, and it also seemed like a relatively benign way to release some feelings of anger and hatred rather than letting them sit and curdle into something much more dangerous and ugly. I don’t think most (or any?) of us can truly control the emotions we feel, but we can exert some control over how we let those emotions shape our identities and our actions.
For me, avoiding hatred and trying to love my enemies is a matter of self-care. I try to rein in my feelings of anger and hatred because I don’t like the sort of person I become when I let myself seethe with rage or simmer with hatred. And while I may not be able to truly love my enemies, I prefer who I am and how I feel when I’m extending grace to others and trying to focus on our shared humanity. If I’m being perfectly honest, there’s also an element of obstinacy or contrariness involved in all this: when other people are being shitty, I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of eliciting shitty behavior from me in return.
There are a couple of quotes I like that address this idea of avoiding hate/anger/resentment in order to preserve one’s well-being:
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." (Mark Twain)
“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” (Nelson Mandela)
ETA: if I didn’t make it clear, anger is not inherently bad. We should be furious about what’s happening with ICE right now. Anger can help us do productive things like lead us to step up and fight injustice. It’s when the anger festers into something much uglier and starts to warp you inside that it gets dangerous. It’s the same with most of the “bad” emotions (anger, fear, jealousy, guilt, shame, etc) - they can and do serve an important purpose, but they become harmful when they are left to grow unchecked. Or at least that’s the way I view it. I’m super sleep deprived right now, so hopefully what I’ve written makes at least a tiny bit of sense…
There is a difference between in Christianson than the essential roots of Jesus teaching. This always leads me to asking the question what would Jesus do? Clearly there are a lot of churches that don’t follow that question. Churches today should not tell you how to behave and allow you to question and grow and find your way back to the very early tenants of Christianity and try to answer the question. What would Jesus do? I struggle with this daily
I am not seeing notifications in either Substack or YouTube when you are live anymore.