Landover Baptist. I don't... know what to say.

[Vasistha]

Cruising the randomness of 4chan.org, I came across a post for this fundamentalist Baptist site. It reminded me, I take this warm community for granted many times, I think.

(Now read the responses to this post. How cruel...)

Growing up, I was in many a southern Christian church. Looking back, the service-to-self mentality was intense... Or with mixed messages, at best.
It just hurts, literally, to witness a chosen path of radiating wrath towards others.

Hello kdsii,

I will try to offer you my two cents. And please feel free to dismiss this advice if you deem it improper.

First, try to view 'others' as mirror to yourself. When you see someone or something very challenging that literally get on your nerve this means that this is a part of your shadow self that you have not integrated; that you cannot still love. Hence the catalyst present itself for you to face it, when you are ready to deal with it.

In your case, you mentionned the following:

"Growing up, I was in many a southern Christian church. Looking back, the service-to-self mentality was intense"

First, you have to forgive yourself for this. Once this is really forgiven, you will be able to forgive others. My guess is that you have not yet totally accepted, nor forgiven yourself here.

STS or STO or no choice is totally fine. To approach the creator by closeness or by negation is totally valid. The Creator give total free will for each entity to experience itself.

The positive path is a path of utter acceptance of everything, because everything is the One Creator. The measure of a minds evolution is its acceptance of the unacceptable.

"You are every thing, every being, every emotion, every event, every situation"