Some encounters with people are like being on the Jerry Springer show while eating Spam in the middle of a demolition derby.

In the end you just keep asking why in a traumatized state of shock. You start planning out how to completely avoid ever putting yourself through it again. You feel sick, battered, and overall icky. It takes time to recover. You may have to shudder repeatedly to shed its residue. It may scar you forever.

I am the type of person who despises conflict. I will go out of my way to avoid unnecessary debate, bickering, and most of all, abuse. But once it is being directed my way I usually freeze. I find myself just taking it in a zombie-like state of panic while silently trying to map out a route of escape in my mind, still trying to maintain a facial expression that doesn’t cause the other person to feel rejected. I almost never fight back because I am just naturally more pacifistic. I am still trying to figure out how to stop a person from attacking once they have started. It is very difficult. The people who do this have no respect for the boundaries of others in the first place so when you try to put one up mid-rapid-fire-sentence they just plow right through it as per the demolition derby way and you have been singled out for complete annihilation because of some perceived lack of value.

I have been verbally lashed twice in the past few days. By two different people. One of them I knew well and one I did not know at all. The first of these times is hardly worth mentioning. It was minor and not even in person, though still appalling. But yesterday I was attacked to such a severe degree that I am still trying to recover. It was completely unprovoked and had barely a word of truth in it. It was all presumption with no evidentiary basis. But the one thing that was the same about both of these encounters is something that has me sitting up at four a.m. sick to my stomach and just trying to make some sense of it all here…

Both of these people, who violated my boundaries more and said more nasty vicious things than anyone else I have encountered in several months, maybe a couple years… they were both “Christians” who were trying to enlighten me with their wisdom, completely uninvited, much like a viper might try to enlighten: with fangs and venom. And this “wisdom”, to make matters worse, was little more than hateful narrow-minded babble.

To the non-Christians reading this I’d like to say:

I am sorry. And I assure you our God is NOTHING like the general picture of American Christianity you see. We are just messed up people like everyone else except a lethal combination ensues when a messed up person thinks they have all the answers. We don’t.

And to the really nice Christians out there who are treating people with respect and kindness and who are actually displaying God’s character and growing in life and changing I’d like to say: Thank you. Keep it up.

But to others out there (you know who you are) I must confess I am fed up, to the point of manic house cleaning and greatly increased deep breathing exercises, with people professing Christianity in one breath and then tearing each other apart in the next with a slew of hateful judgments very poorly disguised as “love” and “truth” (You’re not fooling anyone. Nasty is nasty no matter what you call it.) To these I would like to say:

Stop it.

Just stop it.

STOP SLAPPING PEOPLE WITH FISHES!

(I couldn’t help it… Veggie Tale fans, anyone?)

I have to be honest I have grown to hate the title “Christian”, to avoid using it to identify myself. It has developed a stigma to me much like the aforementioned Spam or Jerry Springer, eliciting a cringe and a shudder and a rapid shaking of the head as if to say no thank you or Please don’t associate me with that one person you knew who tore you to pieces. I don’t even feel safe anymore saying “I am a Christian” when it comes up. I say “I love God” or something like that instead. Or nothing at all.

I’ll also be honest, I’d rather go to a gay bar where I can hang out with largely genuine, nice, kind, and loving people, than to most churches. I’d rather talk to a homeless person on a street corner who has a humble collection of interesting life stories to tell me than be stuck in a conversation with some of the Christians I have known violently hashing out their latest theology or viewpoints on the end times as though I am at risk of death should I not understand and agree. And I would likely learn more from the bum. And something tells me… Jesus might have preferred the former too. Something also tells me that some should spend a little less time studying eschatology and a little more time memorizing simple verses on basic human kindness.

I would also like to say that I have many friends who very pleasantly and non-abrasively share their beliefs and theology with me and I love to hear their ideas and discuss with them. This is very different from the ones who back you into a corner and subsequently cause you to daydream longingly about a root canal at gunpoint.

Ghandi said it best:

I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. You’re Christians are so unlike your Christ.

Stop slapping people with fishes. Please.

Stop trying to win in every conversation like it’s a gladiator match instead of just enjoying talking to people and letting them enjoy you, like a dance.

Stop trying to force your ideas into other people’s heads and your fixes on their lives like a sadistic surgeon operating on a screaming patient who is strapped down against their will without anesthesia.

Stop being defensive about your faith to the point where people cross the street when they see you coming. You need not ever defend yourself for liking truly good things. If you are defensive about what you like then people assume it is not really that great.

Stop acting like you are better than other people because you have the golden ticket to heaven and then trying to cram your chocolate bars down their throats in hopes that they will find their ticket too. They will just get sick. And then never want to see you again.

Stop seeing people as projects that will never attain greatness unless you personally guide them there in the next thirty minutes.

Stop believing that your mind is like the holy grail of encyclopedias and without it others simply won’t make it. I have known people with the simplest minds and even great mental disabilities that I look up to, more than any scholar I’ve ever met, for their beautiful and pure understanding of God.

So Please. Just. Stop.

And be nice to each other.

Humble yourselves in the presence of others. Let them talk and then listen to their ideas. Value their beliefs. Learn from them. Be gentle. Be happy.

And guess what? If you do this they will like you. They will want to keep you in their life. They will want to listen to you. They will want to come to your church. And maybe one day they will want to know your God. But if you are mean, who would ever want to have anything you offer?

Your desire to correct, teach, guide, and help are all valid and even fabulous urges. They just need to be fine-tuned with character, wisdom, restraint, and humility. Mix all eight of these together and you have a very attractive and effective individual. But without the last four you just have a disaster.

A billboard in my city advertising beer says something along the lines of: Be nice to people. Period. That beer billboard has a better message than many American Churches do these days. Perhaps that is why the only ones Jesus really got pissed at while he was here, the ones he yelled at and called vipers… were the self-righteous keepers of the law. The ones who paraded around pointing damning fingers at the rest of the world. Perhaps that is why Jesus was on the streets more than in the temple.

Some people may think I’m being hateful but I’m not. This isn’t a judgment, it is a plea. I simply like nice people and avoid mean ones. It’s kind of instinctual. I also genuinely love the person who put me down even though I cannot have a safe relationship with her at this time (and wholeheartedly hope she doesn’t read this because that’s how much I dislike saying things that might cause someone to feel bad). I am simply asking people to please be nice (in a somewhat dramatic and hopefully comedic way).

And I’m not saying “don’t go to church, go to bars instead”. I do go to church (and I actually don’t really go to bars- though what I said before still stands) And I am certainly not interested in picking apart churches. I know some of the kindest and least judgmental non-religious people at my church. Find a place like that. With genuinely kind people that still challenge you but in a safe way… with boundaries. And find someone you trust that has good character to mentor you into deeper things.

A little twist in all this is that I used to be mean. I was insensitive, brashly opinionated, critical, and defensive. I changed (I’m still quite opinionated as you can see, but I don’t pummel people with my opinions anymore. The only time I really speak so openly is in my writing.) The thing is, I found out how to be nice.

So please be one of those kind, safe people with boundaries and other people will like you and listen to what you have to say. You will learn from them and they will learn from you as life should be. And for the love of God, erase that imaginary line you’ve drawn on the ground between the “Christians” and “Everybody Else”. We are all on the same spinning rock and we all shit, folks. Seriously.

Be nice to people. Period.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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