Bad and Ugly?

Much like the classic 1966 Spaghetti Western movie, starring Clint Eastwood, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” we automatically judge people.

We separate them into “us and them,” the “good guys” and the “bad guys.”  Why would we judge people like that? Well, we look at the evidence, and it seems the obvious conclusion.

Every day we read of cold-blooded murder, violence, people causing hurt, pain, death and destruction.

Very often such people get away with it. They don’t get caught and punished. It’s at moments like that we cry to God. “Why?”

It seems the good guys often suffer, while the bad guys often seem to prosper.

“Life’s not fair,” we complain.

“They won’t get away with it for ever,” says the religious person. “God will eventually make sure they pay for it. If not in this life, then in the afterlife.”

So, what exactly will happen in the afterlife?

Many mainstream religions teach eternal punishment, “Hell-Fire”. In the Bible, Jesus teaches “good guys” and “bad guys,”the “sheep” and “goats.” 

The “sheep” go to Heaven, the “goats” go to the eternal Flames. God’s “Final answer.”

Some theological thinking

I must confess, as a lifelong Catholic Christian, retired priest, monk and theologian, I believed all that.

Now I simply can’t believe that God’s like that. At all! 

Why not?

Jesus gave us the “Our Father.” God’s not an almighty tyrant, He’s our infinitely loving Father. The Bible tells us that God always brings home “the lost sheep.” God never abandons the “prodigal son.”

Many theologians now understand that “Hell-Fire” is a metaphor for the often extremely painful cleansing process we undergo after death. Such cleansing is not a “punishment;” rather it’s what we ourselves will want when we finally, and fully, recognise the bad things we’ve done here on earth

If God really is our father, there’s no way He could send His own children to Hell-Fire, understood in the literal, traditional sense.

Would any loving human father, with even an ounce of love in his heart, send his own child to an eternity of relentless suffering? Even to say it sounds crazy.

Can any father stop loving his own child? Think about it.

A father’s awesome love

The child does wrong. The father’s automatic response would surely be “I don’t care what he’s done, he’s my child, and I still love him.”

So, does that mean the father’s indifferent to his child’s evil? Not at all. No doubt he would want to make up for the evil done, in every way possible.

But, and this is the point, that doesn’t mean he would want unending suffering for his own child.

Surely an infinitely wise God must have a way of sorting things out; a way that doesn’t demand infinite suffering as a punishment!

Even in traditional, hard-line Catholic terms, we have a way out of this dilemma. Even in fallible human law, we say that the punishment should fit the crime. Surely the sinner could stay in Purgatory, long enough to be cleansed, and ready for Heaven?

Is not an infinitely loving Father God also wise enough to find a way to bring us all to love, reconciliation, justice and peace?

Some suggestions for our love

Where does all this leave us, in this world full of suffering and pain?

First, don’t add to the pain. Do good, as much as you can. Just love, give, serve, and accept everyone as brothers and sisters.

Let’s leave any judgement to God, our Loving Father, confident that He alone can make all things right in the end. The lost sheep goes home, the prodigal son eventually gets to the banquet.

Peace and love to you and yours.

Gerry McCann

@themerry_monk

If you found this post helpful, then please feel free to share it.

“You screwed up big time, buddy.” 

“I’m not the only one to blame. What was your contribution? You didn’t exactly help, did you?”

And so on, and so on. Wasting time, blaming each other. Far better to acknowledge responsibility, but without getting personal about it. Then each can freely admit what they did, and then everyone can get on with finding a better way.

Far more sensible to analyze the problem again, and have a brain-storm about what else could be tried.

“O.K. guys. I screwed up. We all did a bit. Let’s focus on our goal here.”

This positive approach keeps people happy, working in harmony, and unleashes their inbuilt creativity. It makes for a peaceful workplace, a happy home. Complaining, whinging, attacking only creates bad feeling, and halts real progress.

I’ve been blessed with a long life. I’ve often been guilty of strongly defending my part in the failure, insisting it wasn’t my fault. Eventually I learned the lesson. For some time now, my only response has been:

“That’s history. Let’s move on. No judgements, who’s right, who’s wrong. History can’t be changed. All we have is now. Time for peace, thinking. What can we do now?”

“Boiling the cabbage” . . . two, three, four times . . . achieves nothing, except spoiling the cabbage. Much better to serve the cabbage, carve the meat, mash the potatoes. Eat and enjoy, and get on with your life. 

Moving on really does make life much happier, much more creative, and builds loving relationships.

Revenge is horrible, arguing is painful, and complaining creates division. Looking back is anger gets us nowhere. Always try to look to the future you can create. Loving collaboration is so much better.

Gerry McCann

@themerry_monk

Have you played the blame game? What did you learn? Leave a comment below. Thank you.

Think of the last time you were really angry. Pause for a moment. Think about it. Picture it again in your mind’s eye. How did you feel? Were you happy, or upset? I think anger and being upset always go together. When we’re upset, we’re not really happy.

If anger is going to take away our happiness, then how do we stop being angry? Think of the sort of things that make you angry. It’s usually other people, saying things we don’t like. They may call us names, insult us, disagree with us, ignore us, or in some way hurt us. Be horrible, and cause us pain. Very often our default response is anger at that person.

If we do get angry at people deliberately hurting us, how could we react in a more positive way? That would be a difficult challenge, but well worth it. So, what to do? How could we keep our peace of mind, and refuse to allow their actions to dictate how we feel?

Maybe that was what Jesus was talking about when He advised “turning the other cheek.” What that means is that we don’t retaliate: not in words, nor in actions. We don’t hit them back, we don’t return insult for insult, we don’t “give as good as we get.” In a word, we refuse to allow their negative behaviour to bring us down to their level.

We kill the “downward spiral of violence” before it even starts.

The amazing thing is that if we refuse to return evil for evil, but instead return good for evil, then two great things happen. First of all, we keep our own peace of mind and happiness. Secondly, very often the other person starts to feel bad about their behaviour, and often comes to a better frame of mind.

Yes, why not return good for evil? Brilliant idea! Why allow a moment’s negativity to destroy our positive relationship for hours, perhaps even days and weeks. That’s plain crazy. Think about it.

We’ve all heard true stories of friends who fell out over some negative behaviour, and became bitter enemies for the rest of their lives. Why would we take on board such insane behaviour? Think of all the beautiful things that could have happened if they had just let go of the anger.

They could have said “O.K. we’ve got angry at each other. Where do we go from here? Nurse the pain for the next few decades? Never speak to each other again. Or just let go, make up, and move on?”

Pride, of course, is the problem. Our injured pride is always into the blame game. “It’s his fault. He did this, that or the other. Why should I make up first?”

The other party, without a doubt, thinks exactly the same. “Well, it’s certainly not MY fault, etc etc etc.”

How silly, stupid and childish it is. And it doesn’t go away. It’s always a thorn in your side, a pain that’s ever in your mind and heart. 

Is that really the way you want to live? Maybe it’s even worse. What if it applies to many other people you’ve fallen out with? Where will it end? We know there’s a better way.

Why not just wake up, let go of your precious pride, make up, maybe have a drink, and be happy? The ultimate WIN-WIN!

Gerry McCann

@themerry_monk

P.S. What’s your experience of overcoming anger? Please let us know by leaving a comment. It will help others.

We saw, in Quote of the week 7, that one way to deal with someone’s aggression towards you  is to be a peacemaker. Let’s see a small family example:

Wife: “Stop shouting. I’ve had enough arguing and having a go at each other. I can’t stand it any more. Let’s stop fighting and just move on.”

Husband: “Yeah, you’re right. Does it really matter who’s right and who’s wrong? Let’s just get on with our life.”

What do you think?  Good idea, isn’t it?  They’ve focused on a positive outcome that they both want and appreciate. Peace has been restored.

However, that’s maybe as far as it goes. It’s a shallow peace. No-one’s actually admitted to being in the wrong, and neither feels the need for forgiveness. Forgiveness is not even mentioned.

Why forgiveness still helps

So, why might they need the further step of forgiveness? After all,  peace is restored. The fight’s over. Why not just leave well alone . . . and “move on?”

One reason might be that such a shallow peace alone is not enough. Why? Because the problem is that the solution is only half-baked. True, it’s better than nothing. But what’s left undone could still fester on, and come up again later.

After all, nothing’s really been resolved. The reason for the fight has been avoided: deliberately left hanging. It’s not gone away!

The whole thing could blow up again, the next time they have a disagreement. They’re tempted to think back to the previous occasion.

They latch on to the fact that the other person never actually admitted being in the wrong. They still blame the other person. They probably still felt deep inside that the pain hasn’t really gone away. The wound was never healed.

Forgiveness: a deeper peace

Forgiveness takes peacemaking to a whole new level. Forgiveness creates a profound inner peace of mind.

Forgiveness heals deep down. It restores a deeper, more authentic peace. It makes friends of enemies. It destroys the “blame game.” Husband and wife smile, kiss and make up, they feel good inside at a much deeper level.

As they say, “To err is human, to forgive is Divine.”

Gerry McCann

@themerry_monk

P.S  Feel free to share this Quote with a friend.

We’ve all heard of the old cliche “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words cannot hurt me.”

The logic of that phrase is so hard to swallow; it leaves us cold. We cry out in pain,

“You’re wrong. So wrong. Words can hurt me very deeply. I’ll remember them for the rest of my life.”

I’m sure most of us would feel that way. So, let’s look at it again. “Words cannot hurt me.” Or can they?

Logically speaking, of course, the saying does make complete sense. Words can’t hurt us. A word is just a word. However logic’s not the whole story. Far from it.

It’s obvious words can’t hurt us physically.  But we can be hurt in other ways too. We can be hurt in our feelings.

There’s a mountain of deep and powerful emotions in every one of us. These emotions react almost on automatic pilot. We feel hurt. We react with anger.

We get upset, even furious. We think only of how we can get our own back. Sweet revenge beckons. Logic goes out the window.

As Carnegie teaches: “Our logic is like a birchbank canoe tossed about on a deep, dark, stormy sea of emotions.”

So, what can we do? If anything! Must we allow our emotions to dictate how we deal with people?

It’s a times like these that we need to remember, “I’m a mature character.”

Mature people have had to learn self-control, self-discipline. Focus on this fact: you’ve got some control over your emotions. You simply need to “bite your tongue, count to ten.”

Pause. Take “a time out”. Pause again. Pause yet again.

Stop blindly reacting. Now, start to think. Let the anger subside. Let your mature self take over.

Why allow some negative comment to dictate your life? After all, it probably took them all of 5 seconds to say it! You really do have the power to get over it. You’re not a kid. You can move on.

• Why allow a passing comment to steal your happiness?
• Why be upset for the rest of the day? The rest of your life? All because of a 5-second comment!
• Why keep playing it over and over in your mind?

Get on with your life, the way you want it to be. It’s your life, to live as you choose.

Your sense of humor might help here.

Learn to laugh at yourself. No-one’s perfect. Let’s be happy to accept that we, too, have many faults and failings. Even the greatest humans, that ever walked this earth, have had their fair share of weaknesses, mistakes, false beliefs and opinions. So have you. So have I.

Just relax. Let go. Have a good laugh at your immature, negative reaction.

Maybe you can go even further, raise your game. Maybe you could tell yourself,

“You know what, maybe they have a point.”

As we have heard it said, so many times,

“You’ll get more truth about yourself from your enemies than your friends.”

Why? Because your friend doesn’t want to hurt you, tell you the painful truth about yourself. So?

So the friend lies to you. Keeps you sweet. Panders to your “deep, dark, stormy sea of emotions.”

If we were really honest with ourselves, we might even think,

“If they only knew the half of my faults and failings!”

So laugh at yourself. Join the club.

We’re all only human.

May I wish you lots of love, peace and wisdom in your life!

Gerry McCann

@themerry_monk

P.S.   I’d love to learn how you deal with criticism; please share your comments with the rest of us.

P.P.S  Feel free to share this Quote with a friend.