Millstone

Today I got really mad. I don't feel it would be appropriate to discuss why I was mad in this public forum, but suffice it to say, I flipped out a little bit both inside of and outside of my head.

And I have to say, that usually when I get mad, my reaction is about 1% righteous, and 99% lack of patience, temperance, and compassion. Usually, I am just a control-freak perfectionist who wants her way and wants it now. This time, I'd say that there was more like a 50/50 split between mad because I'm a fireball and mad because there was no other choice under the circumstances. It is the closest I have felt since I can remember to truly justifiable indignation.

I am a big fan of the loving God who forgives us for how we've wronged others and who never gives up on us. Like alot of people, I used to really hate how Jesus is portrayed going into the temple with a whip and driving the money changers out of the sacred space. And I never will give up the conviction that "God desires mercy, not sacrifice," so that we should not ever fall out of God's grace, no matter who we are, what we do, what we think, how we act or what we believe. I see God never sacrificing a bit of creation when, instead, God's mercy can restore all things.

But today when I was mad, I thought of this:

The disciples came to Jesus asking, "Who gets the highest rank in God's kingdom?"

For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said..."Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom. What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me. But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you'll soon wish you hadn't. You'd be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck."

...And it made me feel better. Not better because I want the object of my anger to drown. Better because Christ's hyperbolic analogy tells me that when we aim to harm the innocent and weak, or use them as a means to our own ends, we end up destroying ourselves.

This is a hard truth, that ultimately, what we do to one another is both a direct reflection on how we value others, their creator and ourselves. As angry and sad as I was (and am), this harsh reality started to point me back toward a direction where I was reminded that trying to get the most out of others for ourselves leads to the loss of our respect, dignity and morality. Trying to get the most for others through ourselves, on the other hand...

I think there will be forgiveness for all of this. I know I am moving on from my mini-fury session to a process of forgiveness, because that's how my life is best lived. But because life keeps happening, I know there will be more dissapointment, and more millstones we'll be tempted to fasten around our own necks. We're too valuable to weigh ourselves down. We're made valuable so that we might lift others up.