Our doorbell rang at 9:30 pm on Sunday night. This is quite an alarming occurrence at our place. Jack was gone (and he had his keys) and no one that we know would show up unannounced because there is an outside door code. Which meant that it had to be someone in the building ringing our bell. Usually when this happens it means something has gone haywire and since Jack is on the condo board, he's typically a person the neighbors go to. Jack's good at being level-headed when things go haywire and someone needs to be proactive and not vindictive. See last year's towing-palooza during the Gay Pride Parade as an example.
So out of bed (I know, I am a person who is in bed at 9:30) I got out, threw on a sweatshirt, and went to the door assuming it was something I wouldn't be able to help with. What I found was a note from our neighbor taped to the door.
Reminding us that his cat is terrified of loud noises and that he had already asked us to please refrain from slamming our door.
I was not amused.
This irritated me few two reasons. The first being a fairly practical, "if you're irritated by me, getting me out of bed to tell me so via a note taped to my door," is not going to make me feel very sympathetic to you. The second was that I had been trying really hard to not slam our very large, heavy, actually speeds up as you close it, door for the last month since he asked the first time.The day before, in an effort to catch the door before it slammed shut, I had caught my fingers in it. Turns out even grown-ups will start crying if the pain is acute enough. The lingering ache in my fingers stuck out as a reminder that I had been trying to be more gentle, something the note didn't acknowledge at all.
Being gentle is a hard thing to do. I taught a lesson from Rachel Held Evans's A Year of Biblical Womanhood in January on her month trying to practice gentleness. You should read the book and see what she has to say about it, but the moral of the story is that being gentle isn't a passive, waif-like act. Being gentle is difficult. Being gentle is deliberative. Being gentle means putting someone else's feelings front and center and trying not to damage them.
I'm not sure what the opposite of gentle is. Harsh comes to mind, but that seems too intentional. I think clumsy is a better choice. If I'm clumsy it's because I'm not paying enough attention. I'm not being deliberate.I'm not being patient and I'm not being kind. I'm not being loving period because I'm just not being aware of anything other than myself.
I am certainly harsh. Over the course of a day (on average), if I'm being upset or hurtful, I think 20% of the time is intentional- and at least 15% of the time it's while driving (seriously, try driving in Houston and not wishing ill on someone at least once). But I am clumsy more times than I would like to admit. Sometimes it's because I have the maturity level of a small child and don't know how to control my emotions when I'm hungry or tired or confused. That's not a good excuse though because I'm 28. As much as I want to believe that I'm generally a kind and thoughtful person, I admit that I'm often not, because it seems like something I should be able to do in order to grow-up.
I'm clumsiest with the people around me because I often take for granted that they love me or at least like me well enough. I act and speak before I think too often. As I've grown older I've discovered how truly impatient I am, sometimes making me wonder if I was ever patient to begin with. My morning prayer has become to ask God to help me be more patient, more merciful, more gentle.
So this is my confession, I haven't always been kind or fair or gentle to you, whoever you are, especially if you are close to me or related to me or married to me. My smashed fingers are a reminder that if I could be more intentional to begin with, I wouldn't be catching myself at the end and trying to stop the slamming door. Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God and the next greatest was to love your neighbor as you love yourself. I promise that I'm trying to reflect love because you mean the world to me, but I'm often tripping over myself because I get in my way. I can't promise that I will always be able to be gentle but I will promise that, when I realize how clumsy I have been, I hurt too. I replay the number of wrong things said, wrong actions taken, wrong things done more often than I recall the things I did right. The collective hurt that I have imposed on the world is what haunts me, because even if you forgive me I find it hard to forgive myself. I suppose I could be gentler with myself as well.
Lent reminds us that things aren't right in the world, but that we can't fix them ourselves. I can't imagine that I will ever get this right, but I can try. So during Lent (and after) I am going to make a more concerted effort to bite my tongue instead of smashing my fingers, to take deep breathes and pause, to be more intentional and less clumsy with you.
I will lead the door shut instead of trying to catch it with my fingers as it hurtles toward it's frame.
So out of bed (I know, I am a person who is in bed at 9:30) I got out, threw on a sweatshirt, and went to the door assuming it was something I wouldn't be able to help with. What I found was a note from our neighbor taped to the door.
Reminding us that his cat is terrified of loud noises and that he had already asked us to please refrain from slamming our door.
I was not amused.
This irritated me few two reasons. The first being a fairly practical, "if you're irritated by me, getting me out of bed to tell me so via a note taped to my door," is not going to make me feel very sympathetic to you. The second was that I had been trying really hard to not slam our very large, heavy, actually speeds up as you close it, door for the last month since he asked the first time.The day before, in an effort to catch the door before it slammed shut, I had caught my fingers in it. Turns out even grown-ups will start crying if the pain is acute enough. The lingering ache in my fingers stuck out as a reminder that I had been trying to be more gentle, something the note didn't acknowledge at all.
Being gentle is a hard thing to do. I taught a lesson from Rachel Held Evans's A Year of Biblical Womanhood in January on her month trying to practice gentleness. You should read the book and see what she has to say about it, but the moral of the story is that being gentle isn't a passive, waif-like act. Being gentle is difficult. Being gentle is deliberative. Being gentle means putting someone else's feelings front and center and trying not to damage them.
I'm not sure what the opposite of gentle is. Harsh comes to mind, but that seems too intentional. I think clumsy is a better choice. If I'm clumsy it's because I'm not paying enough attention. I'm not being deliberate.I'm not being patient and I'm not being kind. I'm not being loving period because I'm just not being aware of anything other than myself.
I am certainly harsh. Over the course of a day (on average), if I'm being upset or hurtful, I think 20% of the time is intentional- and at least 15% of the time it's while driving (seriously, try driving in Houston and not wishing ill on someone at least once). But I am clumsy more times than I would like to admit. Sometimes it's because I have the maturity level of a small child and don't know how to control my emotions when I'm hungry or tired or confused. That's not a good excuse though because I'm 28. As much as I want to believe that I'm generally a kind and thoughtful person, I admit that I'm often not, because it seems like something I should be able to do in order to grow-up.
I'm clumsiest with the people around me because I often take for granted that they love me or at least like me well enough. I act and speak before I think too often. As I've grown older I've discovered how truly impatient I am, sometimes making me wonder if I was ever patient to begin with. My morning prayer has become to ask God to help me be more patient, more merciful, more gentle.
So this is my confession, I haven't always been kind or fair or gentle to you, whoever you are, especially if you are close to me or related to me or married to me. My smashed fingers are a reminder that if I could be more intentional to begin with, I wouldn't be catching myself at the end and trying to stop the slamming door. Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God and the next greatest was to love your neighbor as you love yourself. I promise that I'm trying to reflect love because you mean the world to me, but I'm often tripping over myself because I get in my way. I can't promise that I will always be able to be gentle but I will promise that, when I realize how clumsy I have been, I hurt too. I replay the number of wrong things said, wrong actions taken, wrong things done more often than I recall the things I did right. The collective hurt that I have imposed on the world is what haunts me, because even if you forgive me I find it hard to forgive myself. I suppose I could be gentler with myself as well.
Lent reminds us that things aren't right in the world, but that we can't fix them ourselves. I can't imagine that I will ever get this right, but I can try. So during Lent (and after) I am going to make a more concerted effort to bite my tongue instead of smashing my fingers, to take deep breathes and pause, to be more intentional and less clumsy with you.
I will lead the door shut instead of trying to catch it with my fingers as it hurtles toward it's frame.
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