Confessions of a Hot Head
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. – Romans 8:26 (ESV)
I am never so much in danger of being self-righteous as when I perceive myself to be defending someone else. In real life, I quietly defend myself in subtle, polished ways. So when I do come out blazing, it is often the untapped fires of all my own resentments turned upon the last fool whose simple travel sewing kit spilled that one last little needle into my haystack of overworked mixed metaphors that sparks the blaze that ignites me to write a few choice words “to whom it may concern.”
You know who you are, dear recipient of a hot response, because you happen to be the last person to say the most annoying and unoriginal thing I have heard a thousand times, the thing I pretend not to care about until it finally breaks my ribs because you have said it not only about me but about someone I love. You have said it about the people I work with and the ministry we share, and then I wrap into my anger everyone else whose work and ministry has ever been devalued, ignored, dismissed.
You know who you are, dear recipient of my best glare, whether checkout line cutter, tax cheat, bad driver in the snow, or best driver ever because you know how to turn left in Michigan when I cannot figure it out.
Sometimes those few choice words are my best and most honest words, because they speak to the grace of God in people as angry as I can be.
And as angry as I can be, I am never so much in danger of being self-righteous as when I perceive myself to be defending someone else, and thus edit myself into keeping silent, in order to have the whole conversation inside my own head, thereby risking nothing.
Prayer
“Lord, speak to me that I may speak, in living echoes of your tone.” (Havergal)
About the AuthorLillian Daniel serves as Conference Minister with the Michigan Conference UCC. She is the author of Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don’t Belong To and When “Spiritual But Not Religious” Is Not Enough.