Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Just a thought...
I'm finding lately that a lot of people on my friends lists (e.x., Facebook) don't seem to understand the nature behind 'Redemption'. The wrong usage of the word redemption isn't for the world to decide. Your personal decision on whether or not to look past a person's actions is purely your choice. But forgiveness from another =/= redemption.
The world is simply the world. The world targeting -X- person does not make the world a true judge, nor a redeemer.
Personally for me, redemption is a spiritual thing, having understood the nature behind that as well as conviction, repentance and forgiveness. But for some, if not a spiritual thing, it's definitely a sort of inner psychological thing as well. But never for outsiders to decide upon.
One thing I've learned about individuals who torment, is that somewhere inside they themselves are tormented, somehow, in some way. Whether it's by their past, present, physical, psychological or spiritual, they are tormented somehow. In religious/spiritual practices, especially in Christianity, the general idea of the path to enlightenment and redemption is to repent. When you feel conviction in your heart and spirit, you know you've done wrong, and you want to change yourself to keep yourself from straying from the right path. So you confess your sins, repent, and you're forgiven. This process can be done whether you're repenting to God, or you're confessing to and forgiving yourself so that you can move onwards. Mind you, repentance is not a simple saying of "God, I am sorry." Repentance is a continuous process that you must keep on going with. Even if you mess up again, that's not you failing, that's just merely a bump in the road and you can always try, try again and keep going.
Just so I can make sense of my rambling and put it in a certain direction... let's take for example, someone who's on Death Row.
Perhaps they're a serial child rapist & killer (using this example since it's regarded to be one of the most extreme cases). Obviously it's fated by law that they die for their crime-- most if not all people who were affected, or merely heard of this person, would say that this man deserves to die for what he did. It is the law and/or the people's choice to put him to death-- but do we truly have control over what happens from there on? People might go "Let God handle him", but at the same time some people may say that with the expectation that yes, this man would be sent to hell for all he did, end of story. Like there's a ".00000001%" chance that God would say otherwise.
But what if this person, after being isolated for so long due to the extreme social limits in Death Row, finally came to terms with himself? What if, say, he had found God during that last period of his life and changed himself spiritually? So as he goes into the electric chair or what have you, he has been redeemed by God, would the masses be angry if after the rapture they see this dude in Heaven? LOL like "Jehovah, are you sh*tting me? You're just trolling now rite?"
Or an even more popular topic-- Chris Brown.
This is probably where I've seen the most irrational sayings regarding 'redemption', or even acts of vengeance.
After having did what he did two years ago, he's pretty much been paying off his debts to society, or what the legal system demanded of him. He's been doing charity events and etc., going off creatively into the realm of visual arts, what have you. Of course, his skills as an entertainer and and artist doesn't excuse the past actions, nor his sporadic bad behavior. People aren't ready or ever willing to forgive him, reasons are justifiable. But at the same time, you have people who are bending themselves backwards to try and 'make sure' he never regains his former 'glory', so to speak. A friend of mine commented on another's status with, "there's no redemption for Chris Brown :|"
But compared to his last album 'Graffiti', which was a flop... his newest "F.A.M.E." is almost pushing to be a gold album record, and it's only been a week since it's release. Critic ratings so far has been pretty good, and "3x", "Deuces", "Beautiful People", "Look At Me Now" so far are/were within the top 20 bracket of Billboard's Top 100
So lol looking back at the last comment, is he only "partially redeemed" in that case, to have that many supporters? Or in the minds of those who oppose his success, it's just an act of trolling? Or maybe those who support him are 'women beaters' too, or 'mentally retarded stans'? When more or less the people who buy his music support him as an artist, rather than a woman beater, which the talent is the REAL focus when it comes to music. His tribute to MJ was simply that, tears being real and all his performances since then has been for his fans and himself as an artist, not so much for anything dealing with so-called "redemption from the public", as many people are accusing him of. But as he said in an interview, he's not going to be sitting around continuing to ask for forgiveness, because that'll just make him look like a fool.
Whether people feel like his success is a signal that his deeds are being 'swept under the rug', that's pretty much false, when he's still constantly being stared down and watched by the media, and it's clear that while he's been making some personal progress, he will have those occasional outbursts from the pressure of it all. (Before anyone saying about the media being 'nothing', let's not forget that the pressure from the media is what led to Michael Jackson's downfall and death, may he rest in peace, as well as the escalation of drama dealing with other idols e.x. Britney Spears)
People want him to 'never be redeemed', puts sometimes the most malicious of curses on him and wishes him to be kept kicked to the ground for one event that may or may not repeat itself in the future. However, redemption is a personal/spiritual thing. Even if him and Rihanna met up with each other and she told him to his face that she forgive him, that is -not- redemption and people need to realize that. He as an individual still has to grow and mature, he has to learn to forgive himself and his wounds from that still need to be healed. Speaking that he is Christian, he needs to take it up with himself and God in order to be redeemed. No one can judge whether or not that has happened or will ever happen.
And even in my own personal experience-- not going to get into too much detail with my issues with my father but, he is also an abuser. He abused my mom emotionally and physically, as well as my stepmother, and to top it off he never confess to his wrongdoings, and is constantly in denial. I no longer talk to him because personally I feel that his behavior was childish, and I wasn't going to let him have influence over my life, especially when he lied to me for so long. It's been maybe 6 years since I stopped talking to him.
Do I dislike him? With a burning passion.
Do I hate him? As much as I wish I could, I can't.
I can't truly judge him because I don't know what's in his heart that makes him feel that his ways are acceptable. Despite him having pretty much condemned me to Hell for not following the scripture of 'being respectful to your parents' a.k.a. wanting to do my own thing as an individual and not being manipulated by a religious hypocrite, I'm not going to say that he deserves to go to Hell for giving my mom or my step-mom the pain and stress they had to go through. I'm not going to say he deserves to go to Hell for causing my mom to miscarry-- what -could've- been me in the womb. I do pray that God does give him mercy, that one day my dad will come to terms with himself and truly apologizes and repents and be saved, and I keep the role of judge and redeemer to God, as it should be.
Redeemer is not a role for the world to play, and some people kind of need to realize that and fix themselves. They need to realize who is the real judge and redeemer. Assuming positions they aren't truly capable of gets them nowhere. Because when I wanted to hate, and avenge, and this and that, that was only stopping me from doing what I was doing, and just generally being a positive person as far as what I tried to have going for myself. Why stop to think and aggravate yourself on a past event that didn't even directly involve you?
The world is simply the world. The world targeting -X- person does not make the world a true judge, nor a redeemer.
Personally for me, redemption is a spiritual thing, having understood the nature behind that as well as conviction, repentance and forgiveness. But for some, if not a spiritual thing, it's definitely a sort of inner psychological thing as well. But never for outsiders to decide upon.
One thing I've learned about individuals who torment, is that somewhere inside they themselves are tormented, somehow, in some way. Whether it's by their past, present, physical, psychological or spiritual, they are tormented somehow. In religious/spiritual practices, especially in Christianity, the general idea of the path to enlightenment and redemption is to repent. When you feel conviction in your heart and spirit, you know you've done wrong, and you want to change yourself to keep yourself from straying from the right path. So you confess your sins, repent, and you're forgiven. This process can be done whether you're repenting to God, or you're confessing to and forgiving yourself so that you can move onwards. Mind you, repentance is not a simple saying of "God, I am sorry." Repentance is a continuous process that you must keep on going with. Even if you mess up again, that's not you failing, that's just merely a bump in the road and you can always try, try again and keep going.
Just so I can make sense of my rambling and put it in a certain direction... let's take for example, someone who's on Death Row.
Perhaps they're a serial child rapist & killer (using this example since it's regarded to be one of the most extreme cases). Obviously it's fated by law that they die for their crime-- most if not all people who were affected, or merely heard of this person, would say that this man deserves to die for what he did. It is the law and/or the people's choice to put him to death-- but do we truly have control over what happens from there on? People might go "Let God handle him", but at the same time some people may say that with the expectation that yes, this man would be sent to hell for all he did, end of story. Like there's a ".00000001%" chance that God would say otherwise.
But what if this person, after being isolated for so long due to the extreme social limits in Death Row, finally came to terms with himself? What if, say, he had found God during that last period of his life and changed himself spiritually? So as he goes into the electric chair or what have you, he has been redeemed by God, would the masses be angry if after the rapture they see this dude in Heaven? LOL like "Jehovah, are you sh*tting me? You're just trolling now rite?"
Or an even more popular topic-- Chris Brown.
This is probably where I've seen the most irrational sayings regarding 'redemption', or even acts of vengeance.
After having did what he did two years ago, he's pretty much been paying off his debts to society, or what the legal system demanded of him. He's been doing charity events and etc., going off creatively into the realm of visual arts, what have you. Of course, his skills as an entertainer and and artist doesn't excuse the past actions, nor his sporadic bad behavior. People aren't ready or ever willing to forgive him, reasons are justifiable. But at the same time, you have people who are bending themselves backwards to try and 'make sure' he never regains his former 'glory', so to speak. A friend of mine commented on another's status with, "there's no redemption for Chris Brown :|"
But compared to his last album 'Graffiti', which was a flop... his newest "F.A.M.E." is almost pushing to be a gold album record, and it's only been a week since it's release. Critic ratings so far has been pretty good, and "3x", "Deuces", "Beautiful People", "Look At Me Now" so far are/were within the top 20 bracket of Billboard's Top 100
So lol looking back at the last comment, is he only "partially redeemed" in that case, to have that many supporters? Or in the minds of those who oppose his success, it's just an act of trolling? Or maybe those who support him are 'women beaters' too, or 'mentally retarded stans'? When more or less the people who buy his music support him as an artist, rather than a woman beater, which the talent is the REAL focus when it comes to music. His tribute to MJ was simply that, tears being real and all his performances since then has been for his fans and himself as an artist, not so much for anything dealing with so-called "redemption from the public", as many people are accusing him of. But as he said in an interview, he's not going to be sitting around continuing to ask for forgiveness, because that'll just make him look like a fool.
Whether people feel like his success is a signal that his deeds are being 'swept under the rug', that's pretty much false, when he's still constantly being stared down and watched by the media, and it's clear that while he's been making some personal progress, he will have those occasional outbursts from the pressure of it all. (Before anyone saying about the media being 'nothing', let's not forget that the pressure from the media is what led to Michael Jackson's downfall and death, may he rest in peace, as well as the escalation of drama dealing with other idols e.x. Britney Spears)
People want him to 'never be redeemed', puts sometimes the most malicious of curses on him and wishes him to be kept kicked to the ground for one event that may or may not repeat itself in the future. However, redemption is a personal/spiritual thing. Even if him and Rihanna met up with each other and she told him to his face that she forgive him, that is -not- redemption and people need to realize that. He as an individual still has to grow and mature, he has to learn to forgive himself and his wounds from that still need to be healed. Speaking that he is Christian, he needs to take it up with himself and God in order to be redeemed. No one can judge whether or not that has happened or will ever happen.
And even in my own personal experience-- not going to get into too much detail with my issues with my father but, he is also an abuser. He abused my mom emotionally and physically, as well as my stepmother, and to top it off he never confess to his wrongdoings, and is constantly in denial. I no longer talk to him because personally I feel that his behavior was childish, and I wasn't going to let him have influence over my life, especially when he lied to me for so long. It's been maybe 6 years since I stopped talking to him.
Do I dislike him? With a burning passion.
Do I hate him? As much as I wish I could, I can't.
I can't truly judge him because I don't know what's in his heart that makes him feel that his ways are acceptable. Despite him having pretty much condemned me to Hell for not following the scripture of 'being respectful to your parents' a.k.a. wanting to do my own thing as an individual and not being manipulated by a religious hypocrite, I'm not going to say that he deserves to go to Hell for giving my mom or my step-mom the pain and stress they had to go through. I'm not going to say he deserves to go to Hell for causing my mom to miscarry-- what -could've- been me in the womb. I do pray that God does give him mercy, that one day my dad will come to terms with himself and truly apologizes and repents and be saved, and I keep the role of judge and redeemer to God, as it should be.
Redeemer is not a role for the world to play, and some people kind of need to realize that and fix themselves. They need to realize who is the real judge and redeemer. Assuming positions they aren't truly capable of gets them nowhere. Because when I wanted to hate, and avenge, and this and that, that was only stopping me from doing what I was doing, and just generally being a positive person as far as what I tried to have going for myself. Why stop to think and aggravate yourself on a past event that didn't even directly involve you?
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