Sunday, November 27, 2005
Some Questions
I've been walking through some pretty rough waters the last couple of weeks. I've had to make some hard decisions that I can't go into detail about in this forum. But here are two questions I have:
Why are people so quick to think that everyone else has evil motives? This has been brewing for the last couple months with various situations. I know my own intentions, and generally they're good. They may not always look that way, and I know that I'm not very graceful, but generally I'm at least well-intentioned. I think we'd all say that about ourselves. But when it comes to other people, we're very quick to assign all kinds of evil motives. It doesn't seem right.
Why are people so afraid to get the truth of a matter? It seems that people prefer gossip, innuendo, and whispered conversations over honest, face-to-face encounters where we start with questions ("Can you help me to understand something...") rather than accusations. I hate knowing that stuff is brewing, and yet not knowing where I stand with anyone because people would rather talk about me than to me.
That's all I can say for now!
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Question #1 - If I assume that you have an evil motive, then I feel justified in my pain and in my anger towards you. If you hurt me but you were well-intentioned and just un-graceful, then I have to give you some grace. I have to forgive you and maybe even own some of the responsibility for the problem/issue. The first scenario is much easier so most of us take the easy road.
Question #2 - The reasoning here is similar - it all comes from fear. If I have an issue with you and I talk to you about it, you could hurt me more or I could find out that I am part of the problem. I could see your pain and realize my part in creating the situation. However, if I just get to air "my side" of the issue to others, I don't have to think about your side. You can be the bad guy, I can be the victim, and I don't have to worry about "your side" or your feelings.
I guess all of this sounds pretty negative, sorry about that. I'm just trying to say, in my non-eloquence, that fear is probably what keeps us from dealing with each other face to face with grace and humility. It is a REALLY hard thing to do, so turning the other person into the bad guy and then bad-mouthing them is a much safer and seemingly self-protective thing to do.
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