My Christmas Eve Spiritual Conversion

I had a spiritual conversion on Christmas Eve night. I truly feel changed. And it was because of YOU. You and your outpouring of goodness and kindness. All of you that came to see me on Christmas Eve night as I slept out to raise awareness for homeless pregnant women, just like Mary was, CHANGED ME.

I'll be sharing with you what this change looks like. It created a really big shift in my thinking towards my hatred for "the system".

Today I want to share this idea with you:

Homelessness, apartheid, genocide... these are all acts caused by a careless and cruel system based on hatred for a specific group of people. It's bigotry and stereotyping in its worst form... and it is done at the hands of your government.

But all those things are just small. They are just small symbols of the massive truth of suffering. There are 7 billion people alive right now. Easily 2 billion are suffering incredible pain due to poverty. And of the other 5 billion, imagine how many billions of them are suffering incredibly due to illness, accidents, addiction, and mental illness. These are incomprehensible numbers of people suffering greatly, right this minute.

We have one job: reduce suffering. Every day our job is to attempt to reduce suffering in some way. In any way. And if we can't reduce suffering then we must try not to create more suffering.

There is so much suffering that I can only believe one thing: The suffering is a tool to help us practice compassion and understanding of "the other." This is our purpose on Earth. To seek to understand. To forgive.

And for this effort we will be given the ultimate gift: happiness and joy. These are the rewards for practicing compassion. And these are the true satisfactions that mean the most to us at our core.

Food, money, sex, drugs. These are temporary fixes that fade quickly. Compassion is a satisfaction that resonates deeply and for a long period of time.

And for this, we must give thanks to our oppressors for allowing us to practice our spiritual journey of giving thanks, of practicing compassion.

I'm sorry to say: suffering will never change. It will always exist.

But I'm happy to say: the kindness and goodness and love of people will also never change. It's boundless and endless and amazing.