Love accepts all people no matter what their differences are, what their personalities are like, how good or poor their social skills are, and what mistakes they have made in the past. But love also balances this with boundaries because self-love is important for thriving too. Sometimes, if a person has become a trauma trigger or has made a person physically, mentally, or spiritually unsafe, the best thing to do is to love from a distance. Forgive, but don’t become a doormat. Pray for the person and send positive vibes their way, but it might be best to do so as far away from the person as possible-for the sake of your own safety.

Honestly, the day I decided to let go of my belief in biblical infallibility (no disrespect to anyone who believes this; it’s just a belief that doesn’t work for me), which was at the end of 2012, was utterly liberating. I no longer felt afraid of going to hell; I no longer worried that God hated me; and I no longer felt that millions of people would be punished just for practicing the wrong religion. That time of my life was probably the biggest relief I ever had. And even so, I still never let go of my spiritual journey-and now I’m a seminary student!

It’s a chance to take what I’ve learned and use it for good and give back to the world from what I’ve received. Others have helped me thr0ugh the times when I was confused as to what direction I’m even supposed to go in life; through the times when I was so upset, I couldn’t get out of bed; and the times when my past came back to haunt me. Now, going into a pastoral career, I will be using what I have learned to help others when they don’t know what is what and when the future seems hopeless. I care because I was once cared for and learned to care because of that.

The fact that every time I seem to think it will never get better, that I will never get through something, that my life is over…it does get better, I get through it and overcome it, and my life goes on. It’s easy to think things are hopeless when the present is bleak, but all things are temporary, and life continually shifts back and forth between turbulence and tranquility. Where there is turbulence, tranquility is soon to follow. Where there is tranquility, it is possible that there will be some turbulence ahead, but that’s okay because even so, tranquility is bound to happen again.

Well, I actually had a severe flooding problem in my room today because of accidental mishandling of water appliances. It seeped into the floor and down to the apartment below me. The person below me, however, was totally forgiving and told me not to worry about it, and the person who came in to help me fix the problem said that the floor will probably need repairing. I asked him how much it would cost, and he told me that, since it was an accident and the apartments belong to the seminary, I probably will not be responsible for paying anything. Both of these experiences showed me the grace in some people. I was totally willing to take responsibility for any and all damages since it was my fault, but everyone was very understanding. For all the bitterness we sometimes see, these people were not resentful about my goof at all.

Recently, I came across the idea of the “completed mind” in the Zhuangzi. The “completed mind” is the mind that considers the perspectives and/or actions of others with a bias of being “for” or “against” or approving or disapproving, as well as viewing people’s actions as morally “right” or “wrong.” For Zhuangzi, to truly live ethical lives, we need to put down our completed minds and simply hear the ideas of others and observe the behaviors of others without being too quick to make a judgment, so that, when we see the truth in all perspective, we can live with more clarity on what is really “good” or “bad” and which perspective is truly “right” or “wrong.” Putting away the completed mind helps us understand perspectives that are different from ours and allows us to put away our defensive fears of being wrong.

I think one thing we have lost is effort put into memorizing sacred texts. We focus a lot on the written text, but it’s harder to take it in when we don’t have those words written in our hearts. I think a new goal I can set for myself is to memorize a verse each week from the Vedas, Upanishads, Baghavad Gita, Lotus Sutra, Mahavaga, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Dhammapada, Filial Piety Sutra, Tao te Ching, Zhuangzi, Analects, Mengzi, I Ching, Bible, Nag Hammadi Library, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Infancy Gospel of James, Qur’an, Egyptian Book of the Dead, Iliad, Odyssey, Avesta, or other sacred texts from different spiritual traditions. This way, I can not only read the traditions but have them in my heart, so as to absorb them into my being and way of thinking.

Gratefulness, for me, is not a distraction from what needs to be healed. For example, I’m not so big on the, “Yes, I’m about to have a mental breakdown, but at least I have clean food and clean water!” To me, that really just seems like a form of spiritual bypassing. Instead, I see gratitude as an important part of the healing process. To refer back to the example above, a better way to heal using gratitude would be, “Yes, I’m about to have a mental breakdown because a bunch of really crazy stuff has happened this past month, but maybe I will learn some positive lessons from this experience, and maybe it will even teach me compassion for those who are going through something similar.” It is not about turning away from the pile of rubble but looking for treasure IN the rubble.

I’m sorry you had to go through that. That’s what I like to call “gratitude shaming and blaming,” which basically weaponizes gratitude to try to make you feel something other than your legitimate feelings of sadness, fear, or anger. Your blood brother probably means well and probably legitimately wants to make you feel better, but these kinds of attempts to deflect from legitimate issues, rather than re-framing them as a difficulty with a potential blessing in them, really ignore people’s legitimate emotions.