The angry cry of many a young human being on their journey through life.  Who asked me if I wanted to be on this journey?  No one is the answer.   I had – have – no choice in being amongst you.   You decided to create me – you decided you needed me – you made all the choices where I had/have none. 

There is a strong movement for “pro-life” as well as the opposing “my body my choice”.  All focus on the right to life.  Which, for me, misses the point entirely.  It is the right to create life and abort the created life over which we should focus the debate – the “created life” has/had no say in his/her creation or abortion. 

Should I have the right to create life or not? 

An odd question when I was originally created without any rights at all.  Had no choice in my creation.  Only given “rights” after my creation.  Which is a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.  Perhaps it’s because of that other that age-old train of thought: “That’s how I had to do it!” With the unspoken “So you must as well – now it’s my turn.”

The reason for all of this division – for me – is becoming ever simpler.

We base our lives on the premise that we have rights.  That others are obligated to us.  Which means we are obligated to others.  Which means we are all obligated to each other.  Which is a lot of hard work without any real reward because so many of “them” refuse their obligation.  So there’s no point me doing it either. And I happen to agree with them.

It is an entitlement at the root of so much that is wrong.  So much that we perceive as unfair.  So much that drives us to fight with each other, differentiate ourselves from each other – and expect of each other.

The church does it.  That ongoing debate of about “legalism”.  Poo-poohed by the enlightened.  Defended by the traditional.  The belief that the bible is a manual – a how-to – a should do (and will deliver on its promise if we keep our side of the transaction enough).  The other side says that is wrong – biblically wrong! – that all “that stuff” was ripped up when Jesus came and died on the cross for our sins.  Except – just like my unasked-for-creation – so too my unasked-for-sin that I was taught I was born into and of without any choice on my part.  A belief in sin that I have come to view as uninvited as my own creation.  

The secular world does it.  The ongoing debate about “human rights”.  The laws and lawyers and courts set-up to examine and decide on individual cases brought before it.  To affirm whose human right has been infringed – and who is going to pay.  A legal chess-game more suited to feed the system than it’s ever to defend the oppressed.  Because when it comes to “human rights” – as with most things legal-oriented – it boils down to who has the most money.  And that equation is about entitlement and unfairness – precedes even the concept of “human rights”.  All of which means human rights are about mine rather than yours.

We each do it.  Having been pierced by a sperm … as our cells develop from blob to baby … as we are born to become cute, then frustrated, then rebellious, then average, then disenchanted and sometimes finally grounded … fulfilled and secure in ourselves and who we are (before, during or after we commence the whole “creation thing” for another pierced cell) … we assume the rights we are told we have – make them our own.

From our creation without any choice or rights – we are then endowed with rights.  Kind of the same process as sin (for those of the church kind).  We each believe we have the right to exist – to be taken for someone worthy – to be listened to – to be heard – to be known. And the “scale” of that judged entitlement is just another stage for yet more division. 

I have learned that I make a difference through a single smile.  A single kindness.  A single hug.  A single anything that is above and outside “rights and entitlement”.  I have learned that power and prestige – all the “what I do” – the making “my job title” a reflection of who I am – the comparing of my salary and my possessions … I have learned that none of that “stuff” is what makes a difference.   A truth of the bible is that “the poor will always be with you”.  It is a truth because we measure riches as “stuff” rather than a hug or a kindness. Secular or church – religion of this kind or another … We all measure making a difference in “stuff”.

Church celebs are the lauded and applauded “influencers” – just the same “content creators” we see lauded and applauded in the secular-digital world”.  Power and influence are sought (and traded) in all walks of life: corporate secular and corporate religion.

The seeking out of a single smile – a single hug – a single kindness – repeated over and over … That is judged insignificant – as “nice” (what an abused poisonous word that has become) – or more accurately those moments are never ever seen at all. Kindness is invisible to us in the main.

For me it is “the why” of the bible, “the why” of all religions (before they became tarnished with the same “stuff” we apply to our lives and living).  For me the bible is an attempt to say rights are not where it’s at.  An attempt to show that obligation is a heavy burden but an elaborate and encouraged self-deception. Even that our much loved “sin” is an entitled self-deceit – now an entitlement and obligation. For me the bible shows so clearly that living any life other than one of Love Without Condition at all times is a sack of self-created and self-burdened bullshit.

Rights are a replacement for love without condition.  Obligation is a replacement for love without condition.  So too the law – so too all this intricate mockery we have established as “love” – this manmade confection of conditional, transactional, judged and judging “stuff”.  A complex and established validation for not having to love without condition but still “love” (just with all the crap-baggage we use to excuse ourselves).  So too religion is a replacement for love without condition.  A manmade encyclopaedia of law and obligation, of rights and transaction (to achieve the hallowed sacred deity’s – of us – “love without condition”).

Love WITHOUT CONDITION is easy.  Is every-day.  Is in each of us.  If we allow.  Love without condition came the first time we opened our eyes. Is stronger than steel.  Is resilient.  Is eternal.  If we each allow.   And there is the rub. If we each allow. 

Because that is all it takes.  The decision “to allow”.

And because it’s so simple we have to excuse our choice to not allow.  We have to validate its “complexity”.  Big-up how “obligating” it would be.  Point out how unfair to our “human rights” it is. Write an encyclopaedia of law and history to justify not “allowing” – both religious and/or secular.  To seek out and worship “precedent” for allowing us to make “not allowing” the norm.  To have created an industry and establishment (wherever I turn) just to make not allowing how it must be for all of us.  And the weirdest bit of all of this for me … ?

Love without condition is not about anyone other than me. Not god, nor man – not rights or wrong. Love is and I am or I am not love.

I may not have asked to be born.  But I can decide to allow. 

My choice always.