{"id":6677,"date":"2012-11-28T10:39:17","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T15:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/?p=6677"},"modified":"2012-11-28T10:46:38","modified_gmt":"2012-11-28T15:46:38","slug":"feelings-hungry-hungry-feelings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/6677","title":{"rendered":"Feelings. Hungry, Hungry Feelings…"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Here’s what we know about life. I have all kinds of natural feelings in my life and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I should act on every feeling. Sometimes I get angry and I feel like punching a guy in the nose. It doesn’t mean I act on it. Sometimes I feel attracted to women who are not my wife. I don’t act on it. Just because I have a feeling doesn’t make it right. Not everything natural is good for me. Arsenic is natural.”<\/em> –Rick Warren<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hate is natural. \u00a0 Prejudice is natural. \u00a0 Who to hate is learned, but the capacity to hate is there, deep in the ancient pit within the human consciousness. \u00a0 We all carry the history of millions of years of life on earth within us every moment of our day. \u00a0 Tribalism is natural to us. \u00a0 To be afraid of the alien other, and to hate them, is natural to us. \u00a0 Blind obedience to the alpha leader is natural to us. \u00a0 The unthinking, bloodthirsty mob is in our blood. \u00a0 But so is love, so is kindness to the stranger, so is curiosity, and the yearning for truth and meaning. \u00a0 We are, by nature, civilization destroyers, but also civilization builders. \u00a0 The mindless beast is within us all. \u00a0 The good person is the one who will not unleash it within themselves, or in others. \u00a0 \u00a0 Do you want to be that good person Rick, or do you want to feed the beast? \u00a0 Every moment of your day Rick, it’s one or the other.<\/p>\n

You’re right Rick. \u00a0 Just because you have feelings that does not make them right. \u00a0 What makes them right, or makes them profoundly evil, is how your feelings translate into acts. \u00a0 Do you help your neighbor in this life, or do you let the beast eat them? \u00a0 Who is your neighbor Rick?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Here’s what we know about life. I have all kinds of natural feelings in my life and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I should act on every feeling. Sometimes I get angry and I feel like punching a guy in the nose. It doesn’t mean I act on it. Sometimes I feel attracted to women […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[24,41,19],"class_list":["post-6677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thumping-my-pulpit","tag-gods-and-monsters","tag-prejudice","tag-the-jackass-chronicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}