Misinterpreted?

Opinions needed: do you think that I'm sending out the wrong message (I don't understand completely what that wrong message could be) by putting my Paypal donation link right below my picture and profile?

I received a surprisingly indicting email today. I'd like to give the writer of that email the benefit of the doubt and say that it was just a misunderstanding. I hope that's all it is. But it helps to know what impression I am leaving the general public with.

In any case, I wrote back and apologized. I hope that it gets taken well. The last time I got an email with a similar (perhaps harsher) tone was from one Lainee Monson. It was a completely absurd accusation that she apologized for with great haste. And we became friends shortly afterward. I hope this story ends in the same manner and that I didn't come across as cocky or condescending in my response.

The idea of being disliked is completely foreign to me. I suppose that I need to get used to it. I just really don't feel like I have strong enough a personality to make enemies like that. I can think of 2 people that may have negative feelings toward me. Neither of them are here now, though. I like to think that those feelings have more to do with jealousy (over a guy) than with something I actually did to hurt them. More of a circumstancial dislike than a personal attack. But, I don't know. Most of these negative feelings have surfaced rather passively (or maybe I'm just oblivious) and more of a coldness than an outburst of vicious anger.

I think that the reason I have a hard time conceptualizing dislike is that to me, my intentions are mostly good. I am sure that I have the capacity to be vicious, and I assure you that a mean bone - or two - does exist in my body, but I really don't get jealous much. Or angry. Not for very long, anyway. There are a lot of people that may annoy me at times or make me feel uncomfortable, but while I may feel like I want to complain about them sometimes, it is far distant from actual dislike. In general, my conception of people is that they are mostly good and I really do have a genuine love for them.

Perhaps that is difficult for people who, on the other end of the spectrum are used to or have been mostly exposed to viciousness, back-biting and mean spirited behavior and emotions, to understand that there exists people who really aren't out there to get them. Or that there are some people who are actually trying to be genuiniely nice and not faking it. Just as it is difficult for me to pathom the existance of people who are out to get each other.

I am not trying to make myself the good guy. I am not saying that I am free from ill-intentions, but that as a general rule, they don't play a part in my perception of the world and its people.

Herein lies an interesting concept to observe. Perhaps it is human nature to project themselves into the world and the people that they perceive. The way we behave is the way we expect other people to. When we encounter somebody who does not fit in that mould that we have cut out for them, we might go into denial and say that they are simply faking it. "Oh nobody could be that nice. Or that vicious."

This could be the difference between those who are accustomed to giving people the benefit of the doubt, and those who are quick to draw conclusions. Neither are free from error.

Similarly, this same basic idea could explain why the judgemental are afraid of what others might think of them, and the dishonest, distrusting. On the other end of the scale, it may be the reason why children are trusting and the pure in heart considered naive.

Here is truth: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Perhaps more than eventually being in the presence of the Father, it is that the pure in heart perceive goodness, or aspects of God, in everyone and everything they see.

What a beautiful world it is to them.