Our curses are lies

The other day, I was sitting in my local coffee shop (which is also a grocery store, a gas station, a deli, and a bait and tackle shop) doing some work on my computer and people watching as usual.

I overheard several conversations that went like this…

Blah blah blah gas prices. Blah blah blah inflation. Blah blah blah the Rockafellers and the Rothschilds are intentionally manipulating the war in Ukraine. Blah blah blah the book of Matthew and Revelation. Blah blah blah the end of the world is coming. Blah blah blah I’m glad I’m right with God because THOSE people are going to burn forever.

Blah.
Blah.
Blah.

Meanwhile, I look outside and they’re driving $50k trucks.

Now, whatever… I don’t care if you have an expensive truck. I don’t care if you vote Republican.

I really.
Don’t
care.

What gets me is how people can take such a joyous and beautiful thing like the Gospel of Jesus Christ and turn it into a dreary and depressing filter for a world that — amidst the pain — showers us with so many blessings.

It saddens me when my fellow Christians can’t just accept the blessings and gifts they’ve been granted in their lives. Instead of talking about how amazing it is that they can wake up, enjoy their health, go to the coffee shop (which also conveniently sells worms), talk to good friends, and then go FISHING ALL AFTERNOON after working for a few hours on their ranch — WOW, PRAISE JESUS!

Why isn’t THAT the conversation?

But they’d rather bitch and moan and bellyache about how the world is coming to an end (and yes, I do this too — maybe about different things, but I bitch nonetheless). They/we seem to take an odd pleasure when things go wrong and they work hard to try to find it.

Our days can get consumed with looking at all the ways we’re cursed rather than all the ways we’re blessed.

We seem, in a weird way, to ‘get off’ on thinking about the end of the world.

I guess the ego would rather be better-than than blessed.

This brings to mind something written by the late, great Henri Nouwen in his (amazing) book, Life of the Beloved…

“In fact, I suspect that many people suffer from a deep sense of being cursed. When I simply listen to what people talk about during dinner, in restaurants, during work breaks, I hear much — much blaming and complaining in a spirit of passive resignation. Many people, and we too at times, feel like victims of a world we cannot change, and the daily newspapers certainly don’t help much in coping with that feeling. The sense of being cursed often comes more easily than the sense of being blessed, and we can find enough arguments to feed it... The feeling of being accursed comes easily.”

But then, he continues…

“Still, I say to you, as the Beloved Son of God, you are blessed. Good words are being spoken to you and about you words that tell the truth. The curses noisy, boisterous, loud-mouthed as they may be do not tell the truth. They are lies; lies easy to believe, but lies nevertheless.”