| My expierence in dealing with these kinds of people over the last twelve years is that they are remarkably like everybody else. I remember being at a car show in a park one summer afternoon and talking to a guy about the cycles on display and a week later found myself booking him in on a murder warrant from California. Funny, but at the time I was talking to him he had aready killed and buried a guy in the dessert and I (like everybody else there that day) didn't know the difference. |
| If someone screws up in life and doesn't repent here on earth, I *think* *hope* that they are not lost forever |
That’s my take on it too. We all have bad qualities in us - it’s just a question of to what degree. Where do we draw the line regarding what’s ‘too bad’ and what’s acceptable? When we consider things like our upbringing, or tragedy in life, or whatever, it makes us wonder what kind of choice we have regarding our degree of ‘badness’ in our feelings and behaviour – anger, judgementalness, controlling, selfishness etc. Even though it may not lead us to murder, or child abuse, I think the ‘line’ is like a sliding scale, and can get a bit fuzzy.
As children, we are taught that there are only two kinds of people in life: good and bad. But I believe that this outlook is too limited, and is the cause of much struggle and unnecessary guilt within ourself.
The spiritual path is an authentic path, and doesn’t call us to be ‘goody-goody’, or artificially perfect. Rather, it calls us to be true to ourself, and to live in grace, which in turn leads to better self-acceptance and inner peace. As long as we adhere to the good / bad principle, like black and white, we will try to hide and bury our bad qualities, or we will lie to ourself. (After all, we're not in the 'bad group', of course!) But this leads to inner turmoil, because by denying our bad side, we deny a part of ourself. We all have a shadow-side, and whenever our ‘badness’ rises to the surface, we become riddled with guilt, or we think that there’s something wrong with us. “I’m such a bad person. I hate myself”. Or “God will punish me for being so sinful”.
Yet as long as we hold to this attitude, we can never find inner peace or harmony, because we can’t make friends with the whole of ourself. Our inner conflict becomes a vicious circle, and we often become self-righteous in an attempt to prove our 'goodness'. In turn, we will have difficulty truly loving others. (The principle to “love one another as yourself” is a divine law, operating all the time. If we haven’t yet accepted our own shadow-side, then instead of accepting others for who they are, we pick holes in them and find fault in them. But in doing so, we are projecting our own faults and weaknesses onto them. As Jesus said, “Take the log out of your own eye, and you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”)
But through grace, we can learn to accept the whole of ourself, including our shadow-side, and we can see that it really is okay to be imperfect. (St. Paul talks about his inner-struggles, and how he surrenders them to God in Romans 7.14-25). Much of our inner turmoil is self-inflicted, caused by resistance to the depth and breadth of God’s love.
Once we learn to love ourself unconditionally, we can then begin to love others as ourself. I personally agree with the insights from Marianne Williamson: “The Holy Spirit asks that our relationships be used by God to serve His purposes. And His purpose is always that we might learn how to love others more purely. We love purely when we release other people to be who they are. In the holy relationship, we don’t seek to change someone, but rather to see how beautiful they already are. Our prayer therefore becomes ‘Dear God, take the scales from in front of my eyes. Help me to see my brother’s beauty.’ It is our failure to accept people exactly as they are that gives us pain in a relationship. . . . We’re not aligned with the Holy Spirit until people can behave in any way they choose to, and our own inner peace isn’t shaken.”
Apologies for going off on a tangent here, Dharma, and I think I’ve gone round the houses. But I think it’s relevant to your article. I believe that when we get to Heaven, we’ll see everyone for who they are – with no masks and with no false pretences. We’ll see that murderers and paedophiles are really weak, broken, misguided spirits, yearning for compassion and guidance.
We’ll be “comfortable” with them in Heaven, because I believe that we'll see them gravitate to a place in Heaven where healing and learning is available to them. God doesn’t want to punish us, but to heal us. (Just because we get to Heaven, doesn’t necessarily mean that our inner-experience is Heavenly, incidentally.) We won’t necessarily be jostling shoulder to shoulder with these souls.
I’m sure that in Heaven we’ll have a completely different perspective on the issue, and most of our human rivalries, anger, misunderstandings etc. will dissolve like mist dissolves in the sun.
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