Mess, Secrets and Bullshit

Today my brain has been in overload. #45 made another ridiculously hateful tweet this morning and social media erupted.  I went back and forth between reading the tweets and statuses and articles and comments. I did a lot of praying and a lot of inner cussing. Those things aren't mutually exclusive in my world.

It got me thinking about humans. And our ugly mess. And the kind of ugly mess we all have and then the much deeper ugly mess. Of secrets. Of bullshit.

We all have ugly mess of different stuff. This is the kind of regular mess that hinders our ability to be a decent, kind human. It might be areas where we are immature or stuck due to past experiences...it might be people we are holding a grudge against or anxiety that comes over us when dealing with a situation we'd rather not.  I have mess. And so do you. Often we come against each other as we are trying to navigate through our mess. Sometimes taking a breather helps. Sometimes being conscientious of how our mess affects someone else's mess. Sometimes just taking the ever needed 'adult time out' helps. It's the run of the mill mess that humanity will always have because, well....we are human.  And that gets messy.

But today, after reading so many posts and comments from people who identify as Christians and believers....and really wrestling through what it means to authentically LOVE...and what kind of human I want to continue to grow into....how to keep my mess, well, less messy...I keep coming back to two things that seem to hinder ability to both give and receive authentic LOVE. Secrets. And bullshit.

I was a master at secrets. From hiding my bulimia to hiding my true feelings....to living basically two lives in college...to ignoring my bi polar and how it was affecting me and my relationships...I know how damaging they can be. There's different kinds of secrets but they all seem to produce rotten fruit. 

We know our secrets. And we often have learned to hide them well.

We can keep secrets about who we are. We hide our true feelings or pretend to be something we aren't. We lie about big things, we lie about little things. We hide money and have affairs. We smile on the outside when we are dying on the inside. We front at work and give fake concern. We don't let others know who we really are or what we are really feeling.  All of this hinders authentic LOVE.  Because well, we aren't being authentic.

What if we came out of the shadows and just stood in the light.  Warts and all. Hiddenness and all.  What are you keeping from us? From yourself?  Addiction? Lies? Falsehood? Fear? Pain? Anger? Anxiety? Wouldn't it be refreshing to take a deep breath and exhale all of those frayed and broken bits of secrets....to allow them to transform to mess as we faced them and didn't worry about

Then there's our bullshit.

Man, do we let our bullshit keep us from love. When I say our bullshit, for me, it's deeper than our ugly mess or secrets that hinder....because like the definition says....it's nonsense, lies, exaggeration, foolishness that we say or do to be misleading and deceptive.

Sometimes we are fully aware. Sometimes we know.  Purposeful bullshit. This hinders authentic LOVE but I think we normally don't care because well....we're aware of what we are doing. It's the stuff we say we want changed but are doing absolutely nothing about. It's the "extra" that we say or do to pump ourselves up, to be "on" even though we don't give a damn.  We can't authentically LOVE or be LOVED because we are so full of false...there's no room for real.

Sometimes we aren't. This makes me sad because I know I've been here before..... (and could be again) in a place where we don't yet have our eyes opened to the bullshit that is hindering us. It might be self preservation. But honestly, I've found most times it's pride or denial. We behave as if the bullshit has been handled. Or as if it doesn't even exist. Or it might just be that we've been programmed to blindness. So that anger or that addiction or that judgment or that pain or that lie or that secret....just sits there. And while we continue on to relationship and partnership....we are hindered.  In a deep way that affects other's ability to love us and our ability to love back. And we aren't even aware!  We are missing out on authentic LOVE and may not even realize that we are.

As crazy as these days seem for those who claim to love Jesus and consider themselves his follower....I love Jesus. And I love the way he loved. And I love that he came against what was seen as the "right" way and the "status quo". He challenged leaders and those that stood in places of being 'in the know'. I want to love that way. I want to challenge that way. I want to be challenged that way.

That's what I got today.