The hypocrisy of being tolerant

The hypocrisy of being tolerant!

Its with a heavy heart that i write this but if i don't I'm gonna explode with a great deal of anger, so I'm hoping this brings about a change of attitude in myself, as well as others.

Lately i have begun to realise that tolerance is a MYTH it just does not exist, because people who claim to be tolerant are amongst the most intolerant people i have had the misfortune to come across recently. There is a lot of biasesness in the media about the Gaza conflict, its a travesty that innocent people on both sides are being killed or maimed, but its not a one sided argument, Israel has a right to defend itself from rockets from Palestine. Now those who shout about tolerance will claim the response is not proportional, unfortunately war is never about proportion its about winning at all costs. So innocents will die and that is WRONG WRONG WRONG and it does not matter what side of the fence they are on. This morning i have been following a thread on a Facebook page, now this page is not an official page of Methodism, but it has some very vocal people on it, who preach tolerance then act in a thoroughly intolerant way, they name call, bitch and moan, and most of the time its because a lot of these people think tolerance is a one way street, well listen up people tolerance is a 2 way street, if you expect me to show it to you, i damn well expect you to show it to me. But this is where the rub lays, tolerance needs to be worked on not paid lip service too, but actually worked on. Now you can have an opinion, i can have an opinion, what is not right is that you or i, get nasty or bitchy because we disagree. There is a great line they use on the UK Methodist FB page and that is " we are a broad church" now what that means invariably is " we are happy to accept you if you agree with us" but as i and others have found if you disagree from the general idea you are pilloried or put down, bullied or just ignored. You see the tolerant only want them to be tolerated.
This week we have just started getting reports through about the atrocities happening to Christians in Iraq, death, rape, and all manner of sub human behaviour implemented by IS, now these are militant Islamists and by no means am i saying every Muslim is a terrorist or murderer, but the longer the silent peaceful majority of Muslims and their leaders stay silent, the extremists will rise and continue to rise in all there hateful glory. I have wept this week over what is happening to my brothers and sisters in Iraq, i have wept over the deaths in Israel and Gaza, and i have realised its not a black and white issue. So this is a plea for those with deeply held views, can we not agree that the deaths of people on all sides is WRONG, can we not agree it needs a solution, and for the LOVE OF GOD can we stop apportioning blame and try and find a solution for all concerned. Its not a blame game, its a complex situation that needs a complex answer.

Im aware some of you will be pissy with me for this post thats fine, delete me if you want to, ignore me if you want to, but do not ignore the travesties happening in the world which are claiming the lives of people i know in real terms, not just virtual friends but people i have sat and eaten with.

Peace people

Andy

The prism of our preconception prison.

The other day i got quite upset, someone on Facebook deleted me as a friend and i have done it to others as well i guess we all have. Now i have never met this person, and only knew them for about 3 weeks via Facebook, but it got to me. Now we all come with baggage and have our push buttons, but does it matter what a stranger really thinks of you? in truth no it does not. But all of us at some stage suffer with it, we dissect it, run it around the garden in our head and want answers, which by and large rarely come or matter.
You see the prisons we make for ourselves are worse than any man made Prison on the planet, we wrap ourselves in guilt, we beat ourselves up and generally blame ourselves for the actions outside of our control when it's not our fault 90% of the time. Our own private prisons to keep us bound up in guilt, fear and failure, our prisons where we let the thoughts and doubts out when we start to feel to good about ourselves and need to reign things back in.

We need to demolish these mental prisons, realise we are all unique, we are all special, we are all great in some way. Yes we may fail at times but that does not mean we need to lock ourselves up in a world of doubt and fear. A few years ago i gave some advice to a friend which I'm going to share here, it seems stupid but it does work i proved it and so did this young woman. Each day when you get up and fell like it aint going to work out for you, when it seems like nothing is going right and every turn off the roundabout is blocked. Look in the mirror and tell yourself you are LOVED LOVED LOVED, its so simple but it does wonders for our doubts and fear, it starts to banish them. Many of my friends good friends are like myself going through the ringer one way or another at present. Its time for us to rise up, to look in the mirror and scream at the top of our lungs I AM LOVED, because we are, i love each and everyone of you, i can't always do a lot, but i can always lend an ear or a shoulder to cry on, apparently my hugs are pretty good as well. So guys and gals next time you feel that Prison of preconception is getting the better of you, kick the door open and tell it where the hell to go

Peace people

Andy