“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept love in return.” - Maya Angelou

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual” by Arnold Kunst

10 April

Whenever I am ratty with you - maybe I had a hard day at work, or maybe I didn't get enough sleep last night, or maybe I'm feeling guilty about something and I'm reverting to some reptilian version of "the best defense is an offense" - whatever the reason, I end up needling you in some way. The point is, it needn't have anything to do with you at all because whenever I pass judgment on you it is ALWAYS about me and NEVER about you. Or, to put it a little differently, whenever I give in to the seductive allure of self pity - and nothing is more seductive than self-pity, is there? - I surrender the right to touch you where you really are, to say anything about/to you with any genuine integrity/authority.

But the damage doesn't stop there. I automatically activate in you very powerful memories of the time you wet your pants in kindergarten. It goes something like this: "See, I knew I couldn't make him/her happy; I screw up everything I touch. I'm always a nickel short and an hour late." And on and on you go, into the wee hours of the night, sucked into an irresistible vortex, spinning further and further away from me, and from the real you.

The good news is, I have the power to move you every bit as profoundly when I reach through all the everlasting ordinariness of life and touch you where you really live, when I affirm you, when I praise you, when I thank you. I think I'm getting the idea Jesus had when he talked about millstones being wrapped around a person's neck and having him thrown into the sea. Sometimes Scripture can be dense and difficult to understand, but not when it talks about, well, being ratty to someone we're put here to love!