Thursday, February 21, 2008

Some days

Some days you just want to beat your head against concrete because you know how much better people's lives could be if they could just summon up a smidgen of maturity or self-awareness. Instead, when you suggest something, hinting that now is the time for them to reach down deep and make changes, move toward being their best selves, they look at you with confused eyes and protest, "But it's her fault, his fault." And that's when you want to just stand up and leave and go home and watch something really stupid on TV.

But every now and then, you get to sit quietly in your chair and watch people come up with reserves of humility and kindness that they didn't even know they had, and move toward each other in hesitant new ways. On those days, you realize that you have a front-row seat for the great sacred drama of grace and you not only don't want to leave, you don't even want to breathe, for fear of spoiling the whole thing.

2 comments:

Electric Monk said...

I TOTALLY had that experience this week (the first one, not the second one). I'm amazed at how some actions that seem so reasonable and logical to me will be met with a response of "But I'm just too scared to."

Rob said...

Maturity and self-awareness. Where do these things come from, and why are they so rare? I have the same experiences of seeing people make choices that are just plain foolish... over and over again. I wonder why they don't ever learn. Max out the credit card. Spend more than you make. Eat too much. Drink too much. These are easy things to see as just dumb (other than the eating one). Those people are just not mature.

Then I look at the things I do and I see a disturbing similarity. It's disturbing, you see, because I'm mature and self-aware. And yet I still don't get life quite right. I do the same dumb things over and over.

Actually seeing my own immaturity and lack of self-awareness is so remarkable because it is so rare. T, you provide a wonderful service because you help people to see and then act. Wow!