Something has happened to me.  I've had an almost complete reversal of opinions held strongly in my youth.  I was a strict 7-day creationist, now...well, although I understand why many of my friends, family and fellow church-goers believe that, I no longer believe that. 

 I staunchly believed in the death penalty.  I still believe that governments' have the right to exercise that, but I would never, were the choice given to me, never, ever exercise that right.  Not ever.   And I think that our government should not exercise that right.  The reasons for doing so do not outweigh the reasons for restraint.

I was once--even not so very long ago, angry when someone died at their own hands.  Now I find it simply sad.  Tragic.

 I once held the most fiscally conservative views, thought welfare was for the lazy, the druggie, the immoral.  

What is the difference?  I can't explain it exactly, there are too many parts, too many pieces, too many things that worked toward making me a person of more compassion, more understanding...just different.  

Many of them are what would be termed as religious, I suppose, though I hate the word, as it has the worst connotations for many people, but generally speaking, my attitudes toward people, toward things like the death penalty, welfare, etc., have been changed by love.  Hard to describe this kind of love, but when I finally realized how much I was loved, and that the scripture of my childhood, the one I read through my whole life was one of love and mercy, I came to understand that I was not showing the love and mercy toward my fellow human beings.

This has not been a quick process, or one that has happened step by step.  Slowly I became uncomfortable when people would make comments that once I would have made myself.  When the hijackers flew those planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, I was horrified and sickened, as we all were, but I could not summon the rage and vitriol for the hijackers that would once have been second nature to me, and that I heard all around me.  Instead I felt sick and saddened in a very deep place for the victims AND for the hijackers...these men who were deluded into thinking that they were doing a good thing, a GREAT thing for which they would be richly rewarded.

Nothing in me could rejoice at their deaths.  I was deeply disturbed that they would chose to die in a horrid fiery crash, killing themselves and all those others.  What madness, what beliefs would drive them to this?  What teaching?  What training?  What love, belief or hatred drove them?  What familes where left behind not grieving innocent victims, but grieving the loss of loved one's whose final acts were those of mad men, of mass murderers?  My own reaction, my own thoughts puzzled me.

It has not been an easy process, and sometimes, even as I was struggling to come to terms with these (and other) radical shifts in perspective, I sometimes maintained aloud (or in print) the things I had held to my entire life, unwilling to admit the shifting sands beneath my feet, those sands of change that have upended me over and over.

I've said too much too many times, posted too many stupid things that I regret, so I won't say more now, but I want to apologize to those I've hurt over the years, to those I've offended.  I know many from my past will not understand the changes, and feel betrayed by some of these changes, but if I am to change...let me be changed by love.  Let me become a person of greater mercy, greater kindness, of more compassion, and of a willingness to review what I believe and to see where I am wrong and to change.

Hopefully, this also means I will be willing to keep my mouth shut a bit more and to cap my pen or to scrap written pages...  So this goes out to all fellow sojourners who walk this weary sod with me...the ones who are brave enough to face their own pasts, their own beliefs, and to change.  Blessings upon you all.