December 9th

Sunday December 9^th 2012

Romans 12-16

When I realized that I was the one who was going to be sharing my reaction to today's reading, I was equal parts happy and nervous. I was happy because these verses are ones I am already extremely familiar with, and nervous because I wasn't sure I wanted to share exactly why I know them so well. After writing several versions, one four pages long and one two paragraphs, I finally found a nice middle ground in what you are about to read.

Today's reading is about interpersonal relationships. These verses are actually the inspiration behind my current areas of study, being psychology, philosophy, and sociology. How I came to love these verses is a long and complicated story, but I'd like to share the SparkNotes version. I attended Catholic school from kindergarten to tenth grade. From kindergarten to eighth grade I went to All Saints Catholic School in Norwalk. The principal at the time was a nun named Sister Catherine, and she had her own catch phrase, "love your neighbor as yourself." In my first few years I had no idea it was a Bible verse, I just thought she was a deep and philosophical thinker who just also happened to be a nun, because according to my adolescent self, it was near impossible to be both. But I'll get back to her.

For a while I was friends with a group of people who were anything but friendly. They were passive aggressive, catty, and underhanded and for a while I was too, until they lined up my face in their cross-hairs. For a long time I fought it out, being just as manipulative and underhanded as my frenemies, but after a while I had too many of them, and no one left on my side. I gave up my fight, but theirs waged on until I became a shell of a person. I had no idea how to act around people, because I didn't know if they were being genuine or not. I had to think and re-think every word that would come out of my mouth, and I would analyze every word someone said to me to check for any double meanings or possible traps. I must have seemed slow on the uptake to most people because of how much time I needed to form a response to the simplest of statements. I even questioned the motives of people outside that group of friends, that's how bad it got.

One day, while in my high school Religion class, we came across the verse that Sister Catherine had repeated so many times. As I first read it, I scoffed. I thought about how people weren't actually like that. People lied to and manipulated other people for personal gain. But as I was reading this letter from Paul, I realized he had a point. It pretty much smacked me in the face, to be honest. I realized that it didn't matter what they did or didn't do to me, it was all about my reaction. Another realization that was much harder to swallow was that they weren't to blame for the fortress I had built around myself, I was. I was the one who laid each brick that sealed me tighter into myself each day. As I came to see this as true, the walls around myself became thinner and thinner. I started acting like Paul said to, killing them with kindness is how I rephrased the verse "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Eventually it wasn't an act. I truly held no grudges against any of the people who had ever wronged me, and I was feeling freer and freer with every passing day until my old fortress became nothing but the dust that was easily shaken from my new wings.

In these verses I finally found the strength to move on with my life, and also to appreciate everything that had happened, because I know I would never think the way I do now if it weren't for that time in my life where I over thought everything. For me, these verses aren't just guidelines to living a good Christian life, but a life in and of itself. I hope when you read these verses today, you realized what good advice it all is. In my philosophy class, when I had to take God out of the equation, this philosophy of treating others how you want to be treated and loving those who hate you stood unwavering as it was questioned and attacked by my professor and classmates for analytical purposes. But like Descartes discovered in his meditations, we couldn't know of perfection if it did not exist, and in that perfection lies God, who is perfect in every way. And who has all the answers and who will sometimes slap you in the face with them, lovingly, like He did for me.

Hope you all have an amazing week, and try for just this one week to treat others how you want to be treated, or better, and see how happy you end up when next Sunday rolls around. I promise it'll be worth it.

- Gina.