When Humoring a Hypocrite

Last night Joel told me that he didn't want to speak to me anymore.

Having read a memoir piece I posted about a former relationship poisoned by infidelity and observed pictures of me embracing my boyfriend, he accused me of being "inconsiderate, tactless, intentionally hurtful, and over-sensationalizing."

"You knew when you were doing this it would hurt mom and dad's feelings," he spat with brusque force.

Yes, Joel. I maliciously wrote a story without either of them as the subject and posted pictures of me with my significant other...like almost everyone else on Facebook who has a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Are you truly that misguided?

Throughout the course of his condescending and judgmental bout of talking at me he made several blatant conflicting statements. Statements which showed not only his irrational and over-passionate zeal for being "right" at any cost but also his incredibly misguided sense of Christianity.
First Instance:
During the hour and half conversation he made a point too many times to count of seeing to it that I understood that he didn't know me.

Noah: "But you don't ask about me. You just take it upon yourself to assume that what little of me you're exposed to comprises the whole of who I am."

Joel: "I don't need to ask you, I'm your brother."

So, you "don't know me," and you don't feel the need to ask me about what you don't know because "you're my brother" which I take to mean implies that you know me? Pick one.


...hmmm...


...You know what, I'm through with this listing of offenses, for now. Believe me, I have plenty more. But what I've realized is that I'm bigger than this. I'm bigger than him.
And I refuse to attempt to make myself feel better by pointing a finger at him.

Instead I'll serve him the same just dessert he's attempted to force down my closed throat: Pity.

I pity his misanthropy and lost sense of justification.
I pity his obsession with a lazy belief system that answers most of its questions using the circular logic of "faith works for what I believe but not for what you might."
I pity his tragic sense of piety as it deteriorates his ability to love others and truly love himself. God would never want that now would he?
I pity his running away from the real world in an attempt at staying safe and warm inside his Bible School Bubble.
I pity his confusion and double standards.
I pity his passing judgment on me for being someone who is actually and truly free while he subjects himself willingly to the bondage of an invisible authority translated by condescending, pontificating men.

And above all,
I pity his willingness to cut off a loving brother in an effort to demonstrate his disgust with someone who is unobtrusively different in behavior and mindset.

I'm not injuring you, Joel.
It's like I said- over and over- what I do is arbitrary in that it's my action, my choice. And while my actions and choices do have consequences your reactions are your choices.
If you're hurt by my disagreement with you (when I merely disagree, I do not judge) then you're allowing a hurt upon yourself. You're choosing it.

And while we spent nearly an hour and a half on the phone during which he pointedly criticized, demeaned, and berated me and my mindset and behaviors, calling me any number of derogatory names, I stand by the fact that I refrained from calling him a single name other than his own and engaged in no kind of disagreement other than debate.

And for all of the times you called me "ridiculous" and told me that you had the right to judge me for your perception of my having changed friends, personality, morals, and position, I never once brought up any of your faults or projected some number of equivocal shortcomings.

For a "sad, lost little boy," I seem to be much more grown up than you.