All This Contempt Is Sucking My Will To Live

Do you like my Wayne’s World reference in the title? I’m one of those people that takes any opportunity to quote movies and I do not apologize for it.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “contempt?” Do you picture a seething, hateful person? Maybe you picture someone who sneers the smile of one who is devoid of happiness?

Do you ever picture a joyful person? No, of course not. That’s kind of a stupid question, isn’t it?

I’m willing to bet that most people would say that they hold no hatred in their hearts towards anyone. When I lived in Vegas, I only gambled one time, but right now I’d lay down money that people would say they have never had contempt for anyone or anything. Contempt is a strong negative word and most of us don’t want to be associated with it.

Even though most people would say that they hold no contempt for anyone, we are surrounded in our country with lots of contemptuous tension. I feel it and I know I can’t be the only one. It’s sort of a standing joke nowadays to advise people not to read the comments section of anything online. Why? Well, all the contempt, of course! Reading the comments section drags you down into a pit of despair and makes you wonder how we continue to survive as humans.

What exactly does contempt mean? It means to regard someone or something as worthless and vile. It means to have an attitude of complete disdain. So, before I wrote this blog, I had to ask myself, “Have I ever had contempt for anyone or anything?” But, before we get to my answer, I need to clarify something.

It is okay to have contempt for dangerous ideas, toxic belief systems, or outright evil practices. Abortion is an evil practice and we should have contempt for it because it is the killing of innocent life. There is no worth or value to the practice of abortion. We should have contempt for moral relativism because it is a toxic belief system. We can’t just believe whatever we want about morals and deny truth. We should have contempt for dangerous ideas that say some people are not as important as others. Those ideas lead to slavery, abortion, racism, and Nazism. All these things are evil in and of themselves which means it is impossible for them to have any value whatsoever.

But, contempt for other people? Well, that’s where the line is drawn. As Christians, we can’t have contempt for any human being. Why? Because all humans, whether acting badly or not, have worth. We may struggle to see it, but God doesn’t. He loves even the worst of us. It’s difficult to understand that, but God willed that soul into being, therefore, that person has dignity, purpose, and worth. We don’t get to decide who has worth, only God does and He says we all do.

Here’s the trouble, though. As our society has moved further and further away from God, more contempt has crept in. Following Christ reminds us that He died for all of us and that means He loves all of us. When we are in touch with the Creator, we remember that all have worth in His eyes. However, as we’ve abandoned God to follow our own wills, we’ve stopped seeing the worth in others. We’ve taken the contempt we have for certain ideas and extrapolated our hate onto the people who believe in those ideas. Before we know, we stop having contempt for the idea and, instead, simply hate the person or group associated with it. Don’t believe me? Ever heard these comments?

I hate liberals.

I hate conservatives.

I hate Christians.

I hate atheists.

I hate drug-users.

I hate my ex.

So, have I ever had contempt for someone? Yes, I have. My two past abusive boyfriends were held in great contempt by me. It’s understandable, but, in truth, it turned me into a bitter, angry person. I, also, had contempt for the Catholic Church and Catholics back in the day. There was no real basis for this contempt because I had never studied Catholicism or tried to truly understand it. I simply took what other Protestants said about Catholics and Catholicism and adopted their beliefs as my own.

What’s so odd is that my best friend growing up was Catholic. Obviously, I didn’t hate her. My husband is a cradle Catholic and when we met, it didn’t cause me to hate him. I somehow compartmentalized their religious beliefs from who they were otherwise. I did pick a lot of fights with my husband early on in our marriage about Catholicism. Over time, my husband got me to actually listen to him and when I did, I started to see how wrong I was about Catholics and Catholicism. Now, here I am, a Catholic blogger. God’s ways are not our ways and He finds incredible ways to humble us.

The point is, when I held certain people in contempt, I was not a happy person. That contempt started to seep into every area of my life. When I look back on when I was filled with contempt, I cringe. I was not a joyful person to be around. You simply cannot be a joyful person and hold contempt for people. It’s impossible. There are a lot of people out there who seem deserving of contempt. There are some very evil people out there who have done some pretty heinous things. I’m not saying that we must ignore or gloss over what they’ve done. It is okay to hold their actions in contempt, but we can’t hate the person. I hate abortion, but the contempt I have for it has never sucked joy from my life. Abortion is evil and not of God in any way, therefore, I’m not hating something that God created. People, though, are different. Their unique souls are of God and even for a lost soul there must always be hope for repentance and redemption.

I was asked by a follower to write on how to find joy and this is my fourth blog on the subject. We must honestly examine our lives to see if we hold contempt for anyone or any group of people and if we do, we must work to remove it. It can be incredibly difficult but praying for the grace to be able to do it does make it possible.

Don’t let contempt for others darken your soul, Catholic Pilgrims. Be a light, show love, and kick the contempt to the curb.