That word..

Today, the preacher talked and it was hard to make out what he was saying with his strong accent. But strangely enough, a word hit me....'exclusiveness'. Now, where oh where have I heard this word? Reflecting back, I must have read it somewhere...

Whatever, this is what I could remember.

Exclusiveness is a common trait which most of us have. It tends to make us selfish which leads to the destruction of the beauty of relationships and even unity... We have been taught from a tender age....to love one another and allow ourselves to be loved. Not 'love' in sense of lovers.

However, this exclusiveness or pride, i should rather say, convinces us that we have the right to exclude others from our conversations and sharings. We have the right to pretend that we did not see a friend coming our way, that a simple "hi" or smile would be too costly. We even do not have the time to acknowlege greetings only when it is to our convenience. How sad! Yes, and the list goes on. And the friendships become sour, fragile, just have no chance to breathe and slowly die. So heartbreaking!

It soon becomes a bad habit and it is so hard to let go. Instead of acknowledging this as a human weakness, we try to justify it and but put the blame on the other.

How does this 'exclusiveness' breed within us? It all starts when we experience success when we feel we have beaten the odds mainly. Well, yes..it is something to be proud of at this stage espeacially when you have struggled so hard...to get to the point that you have aimed for. But, there are many more points to reach. And, if you were to look behind you and also around you, you would realise that your family and friends have been left behind and worst still, have at one point or other, been hurt and neglected. How sad again I have to say!

Is this what Jesus taught us? Did He ask us to be this? Exclusive? He came for everyone espeacially the lost. He said 'Love one another as I have loved you'. I;m sure the love he meant wasnt sexual love. Many of us just jump to conclusions and become jittery at the very mentioned of the word. We get all our issues confused. Even a friend says 'I love you' does not mean he/she is in love with you. Then that 'exclusiveness' rears its head again. Instead, of saying 'Yeah, I love you too' when someone says 'I love you', we get all tied up in our knickers and start avoiding the person. Yet, we talk so much about 'we need to love one another'.

It just makes me puke. I feel like screaming 'you bladdy HIPOCRITES! Heck, GET A LIFE!!' Ish...but thats the way of the world. Its not Jesus' way as I have discovered many times. So often I have to ask myself, what would Jesus do? Why do we need to be exclusive? What does it achieve us? What good does it bring? The negative side rather is what I would say.

Exclusiveness would definitely not earn us any love. We would end up very lonely souls. Probably filled with bitterness with no room for love. How sad! for GOD IS LOVE!