Love to All Y’all, Molly

I sign off all of my posts “Love to All Y’all”- and I mean it. All y’all.

 

My heart hurts so much with what happened in Orlando, I didn’t even realize how many of my friends were there until I started seeing them check in as being safe.

 

There is so much hate in the world right now. Regardless of your politics, it’s there on each side of the aisle. So much vitriol from so many people. Everyone believes they are the righteous ones.

 

I have my political beliefs, but this isn’t the time for that.

 

For me, my FAITH comes down to something so simple: Love. It is a love for everyone, even those I don’t want to love.

 

Today Bishop Wright of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta visited my church. He preached as the news of this was coming in, I’m not sure he even knew yet.

 

He said something that really stuck with me: Jesus is inconvenient. He says things that mess us up. The Jesus we love, many times, is the Jesus we want him to be.

“The Jesus who affirms all of our politics, and our spending… I’m going right there…. it’s in the lesson I’m not making this up,” Bishop Wright said. This is the Jesus we love, the one we see as affirming what we already believe.

 

We love the Jesus we want him to be.

 

But Jesus- the Jesus who lived and died for us- believing in him can mess you up. It’s not convenient. He asks hard things of us. He asks us to love people who we might not otherwise. Matthew 5:44, King James Version: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you”.

 

This, for me, isn’t about forgiving the person or people who commit shootings. It’s something bigger. It’s about loving others despite our own feelings, and if we hold that love in our hearts to begin with then shootings like this should not be happening.

 

Put aside your politics. Put aside your thoughts on gun control. On these things we cannot agree, at least, not right now. Love is the answer. This is the simplest part of it all for me.

 

It was in a conversation later, while in line for the buffet lunch, that I told Bishop Wright how what he said resonated with me. That Jesus will mess you up. And he said again, if you have really met Jesus- then He will challenge you.

 

Loving as we are commanded to do is not an easy thing. But maybe if we can get better about that from the start, then everything else will fall into place.

 

I’m not a theologian, and I stumble through my faith daily. But this is where I am today. And I pray, I pray for all those in Orlando. I pray for each of you who needs a light to shine through.

 

And I do mean it when I say, Love to All Y’all-

 

Molly