Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Love Is . . . Truth

" Everybody passionately seeks to be well-adjusted. We must, of course, be well-adjusted if we are to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities, but there are some things in our world to which men of goodwill must be maladjusted. I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils. . . and to the crippling effect of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and. . . to economic conditions that deprive men of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence. Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." [Martin Luther King, Jr. in his Strength To Love, 1963].

In the United States, February is Black History Month. This is a month-long celebration of black Americans, who made an indelible contribution to this country. In the month of February, we commemorate the strength of African Americans, who for over 200 years in America, never had a recorded history.

Lately, I have been reading some of the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. The quotation above was written in 1963, almost 50 years ago, and yet these words still ring true today.

I have written before about how, when I was a child, I was taunted and bullied. A family member would call me "ugly", every day, and no one ever succeeded in stopping him. This taunting went on--- even when I went outside in the neighborhood, or even when I hid in my room. There was no escape.

The response from all the adults in my life? "You are too sensitive", they would say. So, of course, the taunting never stopped. The verbal abuse was allowed to continue, and even to flourish, because I was told, in essence, that it was "my fault" for being too sensitive. Sometimes, the verbal abuse escalated to physical abuse.

It got to the point that I did not know the Truth about myself. Even today, if someone insists that I am pretty, I run to the mirror, trying to discern what they could possibly be talking about. This personal distortion sets off a form of anxiety, because the compliment may come from a person who would never lie to me; and yet, I do not believe that they are telling me the Truth.

It got to the point as a child that I no longer felt safe with my family. If this kind of verbal and even physical assault could be allowed to continue in my home, then whom could I trust and where in the world would I be safe? I began to shut down, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I lived in fear.


It got to the point that I hated my sensitivity, that exquisite emotion that only seemed to get me in trouble. My self-confidence and self-esteem plummeted. I wondered what was wrong with me?

In those years, I was not receiving Love. I was receiving Hate. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it."

These days, I am working on learning not to accept what was said about me. I am telling myself that these were lies! I am learning not to blame myself for the hate, not to fall into the trap of calling myself "too sensitive". Recently, I wrote a poem that begins, "I am a deep emotion, suspended on a prayer, in a world suffused with meaning." I have begun to celebrate these things about myself!

Hate ignores human feelings. Hate abhors prayer, or anything remotely connected to the Holy One. Hate rends the sacred into the worthless, the meaningless. Hate mocks and devalues life.

Love, on the other hand, is Truth! If we are to love, we must discern the Truth about the ugly forces that are gaining ground in our world. We must not pretend that the status quo is either normal or acceptable.


And then, we must battle those dark forces. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I never intend to become adjusted to the evils,. . . to moral degeneracy, . . . to insanities,. . . to physical violence."

Now, I know the Truth! I was never "too sensitive"! I was simply feeling deeply the pain of Hate. Crying out against Hate is never the wrong response. That pain in the face of Hate is the Truth! And the Truth longs for Love!

(c) The Spiritual Devotional 2012. All Rights Reserved.

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