Releasing some steam in Athens

5/13 4:15pm (Greek time)

Things I do not like:
(1) Adults who think they know everything, and tell me that they're proud of me when I have said something or learned something. They have years and experience, but they have just as much learning to do as every other human being alive, young or old. They know no more than I do, and I know nothing.
(2) When someone claims that Judaism -- or any religion -- is a step backward. Backward from what? From your right, correct, "only" path? What does that mean? Since when did you purchase God and Truth? When did you gain ownership of the divine? I want no part of that--not when it means my words will be steeped in bigotry and self righteousness.
(3) When someone generalizes an entire people based upon knowledge of a few.
(4) When someone decides that they know who I am or what I'm like, and assumes things that may or may not be true. Don't encapsulate me. Don't try to decide who I am. I don't even know. What is "self", anyway?
(5) When a minister ignores beggars in the street--- precious people stumbling about with pleading, tearful eyes, mumbling "parakalo, parakalo" (please please, excuse me), weary from walking, embarassed and humiliated, starving and hopeless. If only I had money to give them all. It is jarring--abrasive--to see a minister brush them off. These people are hungry, and you turn them away.
(6) I do not like being told that my "brand" of Christianity is wrong, or that my spiritual life is misguided. What gives anyone the right to tell me that my relationship with God is wrong, and worse---that it's a relationship with the devil? How hurtful can a person be?
(7) hatred, bigotry, anger, misunderstanding, close-mindedness, stubbornness, ignorance, apathy, lack of compassion, unwillingness to see similarities to other people, unwillingness to love.
(8) The fact that I daily embody one or more of the characteristics above.

I pray that I grow to be more loving, more compassionate, and more human.

Good night.