Peter's Template, No Love

Peter's Template has two parts: the path of love and the path of hate. Wherever you are in life, whether talking with someone or just thinking about some topic, you can instantly use Peter's Template to see if you or the other person or even an organization is on the path of love or hate. You mentally put the template over the situation, whatever it is, and see which part of the template fits better: is what is going on part of the path of love or is it part of the path of hate? Now that you know that, you can either confirm the love that is being expressed, if that is what you want to do, or if it is hate that is being expressed you can confirm the hate, confront it or walk away from it.
I have written about my sister, Sarah, being the recipient of hate from a relative, who, I will tell you now, is her sister, Rebecca. Sarah believes a great deal of Rebecca's hate comes from the fact that Sara would not demonize Rebecca's husband, Lucky. Sarah told me, "I could not demonize Lucky because I had spent too much time with Lucky and Ron (one of our brothers) when he used to work for Lucky. I heard about the other side of Rebecca, and I was not going to join in the group calling Lucky no-good and Rebecca the totally innocent victim. It just didn't happen that way."
Rebecca is very materialistic, and she came about this naturally for my family worshipped the dollar more than it worshipped God. My father was raised during the Depression and talked of the hardships often. I did not learn the following until I was in my thirties, and Mom had left Dad in Virginia for four months while she enjoyed her first visit to Idaho, a place she fell in love with. Dad was lonely, and he told me something Mom had made him sworn never to talk about for fear that it would eat him up: the homestead they had given up in Alaska later was found to have oil on it. My parents would have been fabulously rich. I was the one who got in the way for at the last moment my mother told my father that she did not want to homestead in Alaska because I would grow up among prospectors, trappers, and prostitutes. Therefore, they returned to the States, and I was born in Massachusetts where her parents lived.
Until this summer, my sister Sarah had not been to Idaho in five years. Before that, she had traveled from Vermont to Idaho almost every year. During the visit five years ago, Sarah had become aware of what Rebecca was saying about her behind her back. She learned that primarily through me. When she tried to confront Rebecca, she was met with ferocious and very articulate hatefullness. Sarah thought she was close to Rebecca, and what she saw now stunned her. She also learned that she was no match in debating Rebecca. Rebecca immediately went on a vicious, prolonged offensive, and Sarah collapsed into a silent, psychosomatic defeat even though the facts overwhelmingly supported Sarah. Sarah's heart began beating irregularly, her stomach hurt, and she began burping uncontrollably. Sarah and I were raised separately from the other four children. There was a seven year difference between the first set of children -Sarah and I - and the second set of four children. We were raised very severely by our father. The abuse was so great that my mother stood up to Dad and told him, "If you treat our other children the way you treated Sarah and Peter, I will divorce you." Sarah and I were taught that children were seen and not heard, and as a consequence both of us have found it extremely difficult to speak up and be assertive. Rebecca walked all over Sarah over the most juvenile subject: Sarah had received more than Rebecca from our parents and had therefore mooched off them. While Sarah was still in Idaho, she decided that she would confront Rebecca about the charge, and a big pow-wow was held on lawnchairs in my mother's driveway. My father was dead at this time. He was Sarah's champion too. Sarah had our mother and brother Ron sit in on the confrontation. Now Sarah had found out from an aunt in Massachusetts that Rebecca had gotten Mom to give money so her children could go to private schools (church schools) and had even helped Rebecca's son with college expenses, so Sarah was holding all the cards. But it didn't make any difference.
Sarah went over the list of things her parents had bought her since she had lived in Vermont. The list included a washer, a dryer, a stove, and a couple thousand dollars for a car. My response was, "Big freaking deal! That's what decent parents do if they can afford to." But I was not at the pow-wow. I only heard about it from Sarah. Sarah's response to Rebecca's rant was to become paralyzed except for her heart irregularity and her burping. For five hours, Rebecca hissed about Sarah taking advantage of her parents, and Sarah said nothing about the thousands of dollars in tuition that were spent on Rebecca's children. All our mother said was (to Sarah): "I thought we had bought you more than that." She said nothing to stop the crazinness, but in fairness to her, this was the sort of crazinness she had heard all her life since age seventeen from her husband, our father.Also,I am sure mother could plainly see that Rebecca was extremely vindictive, and it was Rebecca and her children who took care of her, not Sarah. Sarah would be going back to Vermont.
I will tell how Peter's Template and trying to be on the path of love led to Sarah going back to Idaho after a five year hiatus.