What's Love Got To Do With It?

It soon became apparent that what I learned about in Sunday School didn't seem to have much connection with what I learned in regular school or how my family, friends and I talked. God or Love were rarely mentioned. While I was inspired to be Love as a child, there was very little guidance or dialogue about what this actually meant in every day life.

Early in my elementary school life, my Mom taught me about "clicks". She pointed out how a group of children tend to be the popular kids and that so many of the other children want to be part of, or accepted by that popular group of children. Often, she pointed out, that the click could be mean or dismissive to those not in their group.

Though in our culture we typically think these popular groups begins in middle school and adolescence, in fact, they usually begin in elementary school. It's not as devastating in elementary school because children are not at the developmental stage yet where friends are their main focus.

Still, after my Mom pointed out this dynamic, I saw immediately in my class who the "in" people were, who the folks were who wanted to be in the"in" group (though often not consciously aware of it like they will be once they reach middle school) and who the folks were who just didn't care. Once I saw the dynamic, I felt nothing but harsh and judgmental criticism of the "in" group. Energetically I felt I should resist their power in our class, and so I built an inner wall of resistance and judgment against the "bad", "in" group.

By the way, my Mom pointed out the very common sense reason why "in" groups happen in elementary school. Some children develop socially faster than others, and since they are more advanced, they tend to find one another and be "in". Cruelty is not the reason these clicks were created, but genetics. [I think this is a big part of these groups initially, but doesn't explain the behavior later in middle school, where developmentally, rational thinking begins to emerge.]

For me, in elementary school however, the conflict went a little deeper. Though I felt I should for justice sake, stand for the "outsiders", at night time I was contrite. I'd be in bed talking to God, (I never was taught about praying on ones knees by the bedside, for which I'm grateful) about Jesus and His Love. I knew Jesus loved everybody, and there was never a reason not to love someone. I knew my judgment and harsh feelings towards the "in" crowd was wrong, yet I felt that often their behavior to those not in the "in" crowd was mean and unkind. I'd ask for forgiveness for all my judgmentalness, then I'd go to school the next morning, and continue judging, fighting inwardly their magnetic pull, and resenting even more their power. I don't ever remember even thinking about being unconditionally loving during the daytime, only at night time, safe and secure with my loving God did I remember I was supposed to love everyone.

Unconditionally Loving...seemed so sweet, so wonderful, the only way to live, yet even at such a young "innocent" stage, I found it so difficult. I also felt I had no one to talk with about this struggle. No one ever mentioned Love except at church. My family was not emotionally, religiously or spiritually oriented. God and Love were never the topics at the dinner table.

At school Love was never discussed or taught as a value. Sunday school teachers taught Christian values, but they themselves didn't feel at all accessible. Truthfully, I didn't think even they got it.

I was confused. Jesus was put on a pedestal on the one hand, yet nowhere did I feel safe enough to talk about the foundation of His teaching, Love. The message I got from this over the years was that in "real" life, God, Love was almost totally irrelevant. Thus, a split became solidified in my life. There was the outer life, family, school, activities and then there was this inner life, God, Jesus, Love that was more real to me than any of the outer world, but had no place in it. This split continued most of my life until I became a minister, where publicly I began to live what I had been living inwardly since childhood. Even now though, the split is still there, though more subtly. This is the primary reason for this blog, to be even more public about my interior world, so the separation is healed and the inner is the outer, and the outer is the inner.

Often we are guided in our spiritual life to keep our revelations secret, sacred and silent until they have time to gestate and grow strong enough that they won't be shut down by others ignorance, criticisms or judgments. These years of the split within me gave me the gift to continue to grow spiritually inwardly, explore, learn, question, doubt, struggle in the safety of God's Unconditional Love, and through that, develop a powerful inner core that lives spontaneously and freely in my heart.

Jesus said to lay our treasures in heaven where neither dust nor moth can corrupt. This is what my childhood gave me, it wasn't easy, in fact often extremely painful, and yet the treasure it has given me is beyond anything, anything humanly describable. For this, I am forever and ever grateful!