Harboring Hatred Towards Anyone Isn’t Healthy

I heard someone share recently in a recovery meeting where the topic was on “tolerance”, about how much they truly hated a small number of people in life, but loved mostly everyone else. As far as I’m concerned, hating anyone only condemns me to living a life that’s moving me in the exact opposite direction of where my recovery and spirituality is trying to send me.

I’m a firm believer that a life recovery and spirituality lead a person to love unconditionally. I also believe they lead a person to a life of peace and serenity as well. But when hate occupies any part of the mind, body, or soul, it’s impossible to be any of those things. I should know given that I spent a good chunk of my life hating so many people.

Today, I do my best to love everyone because I truly believe that a piece of God lives within each and every one of us. Unfortunately, some people block out this sunlight of their spirit through toxic behaviors and means. The more they continue to do this, the darker they become. And the darker they become, the more they fill themselves up with that feeling of hate. And the more they fill themselves up with that feeling of hate, the more they move themselves away from that life of recovery and spirituality. Thus anyone who’s still harboring hatred towards even a single soul on this planet says but one thing. It says they are blocking out God’s light within themselves in some way and moving in the completely wrong direction.

Thankfully, I’m not one of those people who are doing this anymore as I learned my lesson on how sick I became in life by doing so. But I have met many others who still do, and I keep my distance from all of them. While I still love them from afar because God still lives somewhere within each of them, I do not wish to subject myself to their hatred, or any of their other dark behaviors or mannerisms.

The only people I surround myself with these days are those who are doing everything they can to unconditionally love everyone around them. I find that those who do are usually filled with the same peace and serenity I seek in life. But anyone who is advocating hatred in any way, shape, or form is really just someone that’s shunning themselves from the love of God and getting nothing more out of it except growing sicker the more they do so.

The bottom line is this. Harboring hatred towards anyone isn’t healthy for someone who’s trying to live a life of recovery and spirituality. So if you happen to still have any hatred within yourself, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and do everything you can to free yourself from all of it. And know in doing so, that you’ll be heading in the right direction, which is towards God’s love and light.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

TLC’s “My Husband’s Not Gay”

TLC has another new show that seems to be creating a tremendous amount of uproar from various people and groups around the country. It’s called “My Husband’s Not Gay” and is based on four Mormon men living in Salt Lake City, Utah, who are each married to a woman, but attracted to men, yet they don’t identify themselves as gay.

As of the time of me writing this, the GLAAD organization has been one of the most outspoken stating, “the show is downright irresponsible.” And that “No one can change who they love, and, more importantly, no one should have to. A Change.org petition was also started specifically to ask TLC to cancel the show and has already garnered over 80,000 signatures. Over on TLC’s main web page for the show itself, there’s now a growing amount of debates, anger, and rage being written in the comments section for those in support of the show and those who aren’t.

Sadly, after reading enough of those comments and enough of the news articles about this new show, I found the issue is really no different than what been an ever-increasing hot topic for the past decade or so. And it boils down to just one thing and one thing only…

Team A: Homosexuality is a sin and a choice.

Team B: Homosexuality is not a sin and a person is born that way.

With that being said, the show “My Husband’s Not Gay” now joins the ranks of those who have kept this debate alive such as Duck Dynasty, Chick-Fil-A, The Salvation Army, and the Boy Scouts of America, each having previously stood on the foundation that begin gay is morally wrong, all the while using the Bible’s words as their platform.

Frankly, I’ve grown quite weary of this issue and of the hate coming from both sides of the debate. Some of the comments I read were downright vicious and polarizing from those who support homosexuality and those who don’t. But the reality is to each his own. So what if a bunch of guys have chosen to be married, but still have feelings towards men? I’ve met a ton of them in my lifetime already. Some have cheated on their wives repeatedly behind their backs with other men for years. Others have remained faithful but miserable inside because they have never felt like they were being true to themselves. While a bunch have lived in complete denial for years about the entire issue. But most seemed to have lived in fear for much of their married life, fully believing that God says homosexuality is a sin.

Look, I’m not God and can’t say how God truly feels on this issue. I also can’t say whether the Bible is God’s absolute truth or not and neither can anyone else on this Earth either. The fact is that each person has their own walk in life and whether they choose to remain married and faithful with gay feelings, or to act on them and commit adultery, or to live fully as a homosexual, is really all about their own journey with God.

I’ve had my own journey with God in terms of my sexuality and come to acceptance over it. It took me more than two decades to get there, but I have an incredible amount of peace and serenity now when it comes to my sexuality. Unfortunately, there are plenty out there in this world like the four men in this new TLC show who still battle what they probably refer to as their inner demon.

While I don’t know whether this show will be successful or not, it’s already fully successful in one thing, and that’s in showing the continued separation of our country between those who believe God looks down upon homosexuality and those who don’t. Until everyone comes to a place of unconditional love and acceptance in their hearts about a person’s sexuality, a show like “My Husband’s Not Gay” is only going to keep on sparking outrage and further drive us away from receiving the absolute love of God himself…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson