There is a long Chinese story about this. Horses run away, everyone tells the owner they feel bad for him, he says “who knows what is good or bad?” Next day the horses return and everyone is happy. Again he says “who knows what is good or bad?” Then his eldest son goes riding on a horse, falls to the ground and breaks his leg badly. Everyone is sad for him, he gives the response. Next day the Emperor’s army comes to town to grab young men and force them into the military. They don’t take the son because of his leg. Everyone tells the man he is lucky, he gives his response. On and on this story goes, showing that one never knows how things will turn out.

Many of us dream of wealth and how that will make us happy, but the world is full of unhappy rich people. Some try to live in poverty to go into their soul to be happy, but the world is even more full of unhappy poor people. Yet how can you tell who the happy are? Even more how can you tell those who have depth and connection with God? Lots of people claiming to be aligned with God. The Lord Resistance Army makes this claim as it merrily rapes and murders it’s way through the center of Africa. There is amazing wealth in Africa in the hands of a few who dream themselves better than others, yet who will die and become dust like the poor they look down on. Who knows what of this is good or bad? I feel that raping and pillaging and starving the poor in the name of God is not a good thing. Apparently those that do this disagree, or are just blind and stupid.

I had a friend for many years, one that I used to fill a deep hole of self worthlessness. One day she told me the relationship was over. Said I was one of her abusers. All I could think of was all the abusive things she did to me that I tolerated out of my need to feel someone was there for me. Given we both thought the other was abusive I had to ask myself why I wanted to keep it going. Since that day I have faced the darkness and emptiness within and am far more self loving, happy and love others. One of the worst more painful days I had experienced was the beginning of my change. God’s big meat cleaver came down and separated us for both our good. Who is to say what is good or bad?

I have lived in fear of losing jobs and tolerated depression at work because I didn’t know what else to do. Yet every time I lost a job, or moved to a new place, or changed a relationship, things were shook up, I learned about how I was stuck, and grew and became stronger. I have lived in the streets, taken drugs, been a Chief Financial Officer of a corporation holding millions of dollars worth of property and saved a large sum for my retirement, only to become stuck and fearful of losing this, and then lost it. Now I am  a temp worker and musician and much happier, even though I am at a loss how or why the money keeps showing up. Each step a fear, a good, a bad.

My mother killed herself when I was eighteen. She had removed all her clothes, her letters, everything, even torn out the page in the Bible that had her name on it, a total erasure of her. A sad story, yet she ended up where all the successful, the proud, the wealthy, the revolutionaries, everyone will end up. Dead. But is she? Did she fulfill something she needed to that would let her eternal part move on? Or was she so caught by her internal demons that the still hold her?

Who know what is good or bad? I can’t say. Jesus, the one I believe, told us to judge not, lest we be judged the same way, for we are caught in the judgements we hold of others - these judgements are within and about us. What I do know from my life is that unless you let GOD LOVE YOU there will be an anger, a hopelessness that will trap you. The stupidity of the LRA, of the Dar fur, of all the people all over the world that try to explain their desire to hurt others as something needed by their religion, by the nation, their tribe, -  in the end it is their own self darkness they want to unleash on others, this will trap and torment them all the days of their life, of your life. and beyond. In a world where survival of strongest results in even the strong dying, there is no hope down that path. You don’t know what is good. You don’t know what God wants. You don’t know what is bad. As don’t I. But with all the pride of you being choking your heart, what will it profit you to gain all you desire and to smite your enemies but to lose your soul?

Open your heart.

Love those around you.

Let God Love you.

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