Hey there friend,
I can see you in the grocery store. Shopping for food for your family. For what will bring sustenance to you, your husband and your children. I feel your pain. I really do. Food can make you feel amazing and alive or it can kill you slowly and painfully. When you start to learn about the dangers that lurk in the grocery store, well it can be downright f-ing scary. I totally get that because I've been there.
I've walked those aisles wondering what the heck can I buy that is going to provide life to my family, won't break the bank and I can turn into something we will actually enjoy eating? But can we stop for a moment and take a look at one of the most poisonous things we could possibly put into our bodies?
Hate.
Yes, hate. Judgement. Anger at a person you don’t even know. Blame. Shame. They all go together and they love it when you spew them all over other people. Sometimes people you don’t know in real life. I know because I’ve done it. I’ve been full of hate and I was, in a way, addicted to it.
One day, I was busy hating a person that I blamed for forcing us to brand our cattle. Because we use loans to purchase our cows, we have to brand them and all the calves they have. It's the rules and if you don't do it, you don't get the loan for the cattle. I loathe branding. Burning their flesh simply for the sake of marking the ownership is an abomination in my sight but I made the mistake of blaming someone else for my situation.
There we were, branding away. Cows and calves, one after another after another, screaming in pain while the smoke plumed up. “F-ing branding,” I would grumble to myself once in a while, wishing there was something I could do to stop them from going through such horrific pain. If we didn’t have a loan, we wouldn’t be forced to brand them – it would be our choice.
As the day went on, I imagined a man in an office somewhere, sitting in his comfortable chair at his fancy desk not giving a crap about the inhumane torture he was causing to our animals. I hated him. I directed all of my anger at him. He had every possible comfort while our cows had to endure torture just because he said so. My heart was full of hate toward that imaginary man.
The next day I was going about my morning, the kids were off to school and I was making a few phone calls before going into my office to work and the people that I talked to were, well - just not very nice to me and not understanding me at all. I felt so judged, so. . . disliked. I put down the phone and I complained to God. Why are these people doing this to me! I’m so nice and I don’t deserve this!
His answer came immediately. He said, “Remember yesterday when you were branding and you were blaming that man in the office for your pain?”
Yeah. . .
“Well you were sowing judgement and now you’re reaping it.”
It was like an arrow of truth right into my heart. And yes, it hurt a little.
He was right.
I hadn’t realized it the day before when I was doing it because I felt so justified.
I felt so right.
And man it feels so good, so satisfying to feel so right when you’re blaming someone else. But it’s still wrong.
Placing myself in the judgement seat against that imaginary man was wrong. That’s God’s job. And I stole it. And I didn’t like it when someone else did it to me, even though it was much less judgement than what I’d been dealing out. I was very glad that God dealt gently with me that day and not as severely as I had been dealing out the judgement the day before.
Friend, I know how tempting it is to tell yourself that if those other people would just stop doing what is wrong and see how right you are that everything would be so much better. I get how much you want them to get punished for doing such terrible, horrible, selfish things. "They only care about money," you might say. Or, "Why can't they see how they are poisoning my family! Why don't they care!"
My heart feels the burning within your heart. At times it can be red-hot, like the branding iron – ready to sear flesh. But you are making a huge mistake. You are ingesting a poison into your mind and body by doing it. You are fueling a monster, a cancer of sorts, inside you and it will get worse if you keep feeding it. The more anger and hate you give, the more it will grow. We must turn away from these addicting emotions. We must learn how quench the hate with love. To love the people that we are blaming for our problems.
Love them? What! Am I nuts?
No, I'm not. Just think about it.
I picture that man in my mind again. Sitting at his fancy desk, comfortable and pain free. Then I think about what his world, what his real life might be like. Maybe he has a wife and kids and he’s doing his best to provide a nice house for them and cars to drive and food to eat. He probably has a lot of stress in his life, things to worry about. His wife and kids need or want something he can't afford. His marriage might be struggling. Maybe his parents are getting older and he has to find ways to take care of them. Maybe he has a lot of debt that is becoming hard to handle. Maybe he's even sick with a heart disease.
Suddenly, he becomes not some smug, pretentious man with a perfect life but a human just like me with a life not so different from mine. He has worries and burdens of his own. Just like me. Does he care about branding like I do? Not a bit. He isn’t bothered by it one little iota. He might even like it. But suddenly I can stop hating him anyway and if I really try, I can even think nicely towards him.
I could try to wish nice things for him, a pay raise or much needed vacation. Maybe I could hope for him to be treated in his life as nicely as I want to be treated in mine. Love others the way you want to be loved. Treat others the way you want to be treated. I don't want to be hated. I don't want to be judged.
Now the hate feels further away from my heart and love is coming in. Jesus said to love our enemies and I think he even means the ones we make up in our minds too. Or the people far away that we are tempted to blame our problems on. It’s easy, I admit, to choose hate. It’s easy to blame. Those farmers with their chemicals and GMO's are poisoning us! That's a tempting thing to say because it feels so true, and you're supposed to be honest right?
What could be wrong about saying the truth? It's wrong, because it's hurtful and blaming without giving any thought to that person's feelings and the only results are division between people, animosity and stress on yourself. You aren't doing anything to help anyone with those words. You are only poisoning your own heart, with a dose of hate.
It feels so much better to choose love, compassion and harmony. It doesn't mean you agree with their choices, but it does mean that you treat them with respect and with dignity. Everyone matters. From the poorest to the richest, from the lowest janitor to the highest CEO. It doesn't matter who they are or how they might have hurt you, they need your kindness because only love conquers hate.
Only love and compassion will open the doors to solutions. Instead of demanding or wishing all farmers everywhere would go organic, what if we just started spreading kindness and gently, calmly asking for what we want? What if most farmers just started using a little less chemicals? What if we buy a little less canola oil this year in our homes and we lessen the demand for GMO canola? If everyone just stopped blaming the farmers and just started using their money to ask for what they want, things might just start turning around. And everyone will be happier doing it.
So go get on Facebook and tell the world, "I'm sorry farmers for blaming you. Let's be friends and work this out. No more judgement, no more shame." Then go to the store and buy a small bottle of that expensive camelina oil or the non-gmo canola oil, or lard! Because if there is more demand, there will be more production and we can start asking for what we want with just a few dollars. Maybe in a few years those healthy expensive oils will be so popular that they won't be so expensive anymore because more farmers started growing camelina instead of canola because that's what people are buying.
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