#43. No Bad Parts

What is evil?

Evil is forgetting your worthiness to the point that you rage and torture everyone.

Sin? Sin is forgetting that you are made whole. You are not perfect, nothing is! But you are whole. Sin is the belief that there is evil in you.

You are love. You are loved. You are loving. 

There is no such thing as evil.

How can I say that when there is such cruelty and violence in the world?!!

Every cruelty is a tortured, guttural scream, a bloody resistance to the truth of the goodness present in us. We make such efforts to prove our ugliness: genocide, slavery, pride and greed.

What I want you to know is that I see the real you.

And I love you.

I am here to transform your existence. 

Come sit bravely before me and let me look into your eyes. I will hold you so gently. I see you. The truth of you. The whole of you. 

You were born perfect. Do not listen to any lie that tells you otherwise. You were this beautiful study of skin and bones and love and mystery who wailed in grief with the first bit of oxygen. You deserved nothing but attentive, tender care as you took in nourishment and searched for the connection that would keep you alive. 

But every single human around you was filled with flawed beliefs and tainted identities. They at first, looked at you with awe because of the undeniable truth of your perfection. Then their eyes glazed over with fatigue and pressure and expectations and shame of not being enough. And they got impatient when you cried and you felt their absence alone in your crib. They felt angry with their own ignorance and yelled obscenities you felt from the other room. Religious authority instructs parents that their babies are liars and manipulators from the start, or that there are devils in pursuit of their charges that must be defended against at all times. 

Darling, can you see the fear that leads and traps them so solidly? You grow up one after another passing on this travesty! Come let me hold you in my arms. Tell me all you think is wrong with you and let me wash away all of the folly and falseness. Every moment of your little life, you were exploring and sensing and learning what you could from those around you. You were taking on aversions your parents had and commitments they deemed priority. You adopted behaviors adults were ashamed of and innocently tried to show them, all experience has value. They punished you for reflecting something they hate about themselves.

You were never wrong when you expressed an emotion or when you felt a sensation in the body! Never! You were sadly surrounded by ill-equipped adults who were shamed for their bodies' natural expressions. 

Your emotions are important, essential!! Anger shows you where you are in need of a boundary, where you feel a perceived attack or vulnerability! It is vital information to be used with discernment and wisdom! Not to be corrected or disciplined out of you! This is the opposite of divine plans! Fear keeps children from running out into the street or over waterfalls! It is supposed to be a temporary shot of adrenaline to give the boost needed to run or fight whatever is coming at you! Once safe, fear can be shaken off and the system soothed!

This gift of being human comes with incredible equipment!! Emotions, sensations, memory, free will and intelligence are all tools that accompany these lives!! When utilized with mercy and grace, these bodies flow with flexibility and fluidity!!

When babies become toddlers, they stretch to feel their own identities, pushing buttons to see what will happen and to see how much separation they can feel from these mothers once thought an extension of them. They want to lead the activities because they have figured out they have their own voice! They want everything opposite to what you want because they are trying to feel out how different their experience may be to yours! They are inquisitive explorers out to see what this world is beyond their cribs and Mommy’s arms!

Hitting, biting, screaming, crying, tantrums and over-tired explosions prove not one thing about evil. Lying is a developmental necessity to learning how to have a separate mind. They are maddening little button-pushers wearing out every thin nerve. And they are in no way sinning. How are you showing them by example how to regulate emotions when you feel angry? What have they learned from you already? How strange and overwhelming three year olds must feel in that little body when something is taken out of his hands? He cannot control anything at this point in his little life and of course, he is going to scream out or cry giant tears. He is learning who he is by these little objects he holds and feels bonded to. Your ability to go slow and be present with his feelings during the lesson teach him everything he needs to know.

My dearest friends, you repeat what you have been taught, though you make efforts to do better. Generational curses breed defiance, confusion and self-doubt. Do you not see the wounded children hiding behind every irrational or violence-addicted adult? 

Stop the cycle.

You are born whole! Can you imagine?? Every bit of you in that human skin is good. I know you have regrets. Isn’t that the pinnacle of holiness? To find love in your experience enough to question your choices and work to find a better way, a kinder way to interact in the world? I like it even more when one shows genuine remorse to another and love is offered in return!

I have witnessed how this truth sets people free. Jesus said it would. What if it were real that the kingdom of GOD was within each of us? What if biblically taught salvation, was Jesus saying, “Remember who you are!”

I know the towers this truth leaves tumbled.

Towers of control and shame in religion. Towers of abuse and brokenness. Towers of false ideas and fear-mongering sermons.

Let them crumble.
See the truth in a child’s eyes.

See it gazing back at you in the mirror.