seeker63 said:
"pray for those you hate.
soon you wont’ hate them anymore"
I haven’t been that lucky. I have enormous difficulty seeing God in the face of most people. I’m generally disgusted by the human race and the stupid, repulsive way most people act and think. It’s probably the largest stumbling block in my religious life. I mention it in Confession, but nothing’s gotten any better. Maybe there’s a connection with my own self-loathing, but still, as long as I’m capable of analyzing things, I find it hard to think I’ll be able to like or love my fellow man. It’s a sorry situation to be in. It’s like a wall keeping me away from God.
Maybe it’s just because I was rather manic at the time, but I tried a couple of exact opposite approach once when I was trying to get over anger at people I thought were tearing the Church apart. They were quite unorthodox, and some may have problems with them, but they worked for me. Two different strategies:
First, I imagined myself standing there self-righteously while the jerk was being questioned by God Himself. Then I imagined God looking at that man and turning him over to the guard, who then began unspeakable tortures. A little of that and I started feeling pity for the guy.
Another approach, which actually worked better, was that I found an old book I bought decades ago called “2000 Insults for All Occasions.” I went through a couple sections, and picked out all those that I thought might apply to this guy, and took notes, such as “he’s the kind of guy who would throw a drowning man both ends of a rope.” Then I wrote a short paragraph just cutting the guy into shreds, using Biblical quotes and exaggerated metaphors, until I had turned him into a hideous monster. Then I giggled at the power I had over this guy, all these nasty things I could say, and imagine what he would think if he actually heard them. Then I shredded all of the evidence, and felt like I “owned” him, and therefore no longer needed to prove anything.
Plus, on a more practical level, that I started realizing that in my anger toward them, I was actually no better than them. Then I got over it all in my mind, and realized these evil monsters are just weak dudes like me doing what their misinformed mind thought was right. I eventually made peace with all but one man involved. Soon afterwards, I learned that the one man had left the parish at the request of our new pastor.
Alan
