An Open Letter to the World

Dear World:

I owe you a long overdue apology, and one of significant penitence and supplication.

I apologize for the mistaken Christianity that has plagued all my actions. It burdens the depths of me, like a disease. And for what it is worth, I sincerely apologize for all the rampant mistaken Christianity all around me and within you. I am sorry that I have made no true attempt to do something about it. What is more, I am sorry that most of the time the whole problem remains completely outside my thoughts. It must be so frustrating when I elude blame by claiming I am "not of you."

I am sorry for judging you so harshly, yet neglecting to take a serious, self-determining look at my own self. I am familiar with the argument that I am what you have made me, but the reciprocal of that argument is just as true, and there seems to be much more evidence backing it. I confess to you that I have confused what it means to "despise the world," which is the phrase written in the Scriptures (you know the Scriptures - they are the ancient, inspired writings I claim to believe but fail to follow). In attempting to despise you, I have attacked you with cynicism and hypocritical close-mindedness. Forgive me, World, because I so often know not what I do.

I am sorry for pouring as much hate into you as I have poured love. I don't believe the two cancel each other out, but the sides are much more even than they probably should be. I apologize for confusing the act of love with the practice of intellectualizing and the display of pity. I have intellectualized your history, your sciences, your politics and laws, your wars and your reasons behind them. Oh World, I have pitied your gays, your minorities, your poor, your handicapped, your unemployed and your laid-off, your criminals, your unwed mothers, your divorced and deranged, your diseased and dying. And in the midst of all this lack of love, my judgment of you has been more narrow than the eye of a needle.

Of these things I repent, oh World.

I repent from loving the things that do not help and will not last. I repent from caring about the things that matter so much less than the things I refrain from considering. I repent from sometimes confusing the laws of man for the Law of God, and for blurring the lines between the two all other times. You deserve something better than this.
I repent from replacing the life-changing grace of God with obtuse, burdensome rules and commands that I unsoundly pass off as the precepts and wishes of God. You deserve someone truer than me.

Forgive me, World, for feasting on your garbage and casting aside your beauty, so that you are no longer sure what is worthwhile for a human soul and what is detrimental.

Soon I will be free from your troubles, O World, but I am so sorry that I enacted so many of them in the first place. It was never my intention.
Have mercy on me, O World. I was so caught up in myself and my theology and my beliefs and my morals, that I didn't notice you dying right in front of me.

Is it too late to save you? Is it too late to save myself?

Signed,

one who dwells upon you