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How many of you are familiar with Billy Joel’s hit love song “Just the way you are”. Each verse ends in the refrain I want/need/love you just the way you are. The final verse goes The same old someone that I knew What will it take till you believe in me The way that I believe in you.
I said I love you and that's forever
However life is very different from Billy Joel’s music, because one of the things we find it almost impossible to do is to accept the people in our lives “just the way they are”. In fact the thing we most want to do is to change those around us and to change them to suit us. In seeking to change people we do have their best interests in mind, but we do want them to change. Life would be far better for all concerned if only others would change. Our motto can be summed up as “be reasonable see things my way”. In chapter 7 of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus addresses this human problem in a very succinct manner. “Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye. Or how can you say to your neighbour Let me take the speck out of your eye while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye”. Billy Joel can write a catchy love song but these few short lines attributed to Jesus in this Gospel encapsulate the truth of how the majority of us live and perceive the world. The tiniest object in the human eye causes extreme pain, the eyes water, and it is impossible to see anything clearly. The analogy of a how a foreign object in the eye distorts our vision is extraordinarily appropriate. We all see the world from different perspectives, we all suffer from distorted vision yet each one of us believes that our view is the only reality. As with all problems in life the first step is to make ourselves aware that we are the problem. In this case it is to make ourselves aware, that we to have a distorted image of the world. We need to be aware not with a theoretical knowledge, but with an appreciation of the real truth that we are all stumbling through life, half blinded and in pain and our perception of the world is distorted by our blurred vision. Our blurred vision means that despite the contrary evidence we want to see our world as a place where there is no change, and a world where we can control events. Although we do have our moments of clarity when we know that a static world, without change would soon drive us crazy most of us still hanker for the safe and the mundane. At heart we are lazy because it is when life changes and events challenge us that we have to summon up the courage to put effort into living, as opposed to just going through the motions of living. To be alive is to be a part of change; the challenge for us is to accept change and to embrace it and to make the best of life. The distorted vision we live with also means that we have a very unrealistic but a carefully constructed image of our real self. We spend a great deal of time maintaining the image we want to present to the world. We are like a person preparing for an important job interview, we really want the job so we set out to present ourselves as the imaginary person described in the job specification. So we dress as we think is expected of us and allow the interviewer a glimpse of the personality we think the interviewer is looking for. We try to divide our personality into parts; some parts to be kept well hidden. We are so intent on maintaining this image that we forget that everyone else has distorted vision that in turn they see the image we present as being very different from our perceived ideal. So we all live in a world rather like that inhabited by Alice in Wonderland where nothing is really as it appears. We are actors, working hard at keeping up a pretence. Of course it is in the matter of noticing the faults in others that the blurred vision really takes on a life and energy of its own. We don’t have to actually know people in order for their habits to annoy us- the person in the queue in front of us who spends ages rooting in her bag for change, the cashier chatting with her friend instead of serving us immediately. Even at a distance people’s habits can be exceedingly annoying, the annoyance magnifies when we it comes to interpersonal relationships. Most family rows are about the most trivial things in life. Who left the cup on the draining board. Who left the towels on a wet heap on the floor? The best way of dealing with this is by way of discussion at a time when everyone is calm. When this fails to produce results, as it invariably will, to try to have a sense of proportion and a sense of humour and some patience. We also need to keep reminding ourselves, though we hate to admit it that we are equally irritating. These trivial situations provide the subject matter of comedy sketches and life will be so much better if we laugh at them and ourselves rather than rail. We should also try to go behind the irritation and see the person behind the irritation. Preparing an address for Sunday Service can bring home just how often I fall into doing what I am warning you all about. I was working on this address and decided I needed a break, I would take a shower. I was enjoying the hot water and found myself thinking John hasn’t come back with news of the job he applied for… probably did not get the job, I did think that he should have had a more positive attitude when he was going for the interview!!! Living other people’s lives takes a great deal of time; think of all the time we waste doing something they don’t want and certainly appreciate. As in the prayer of the elderly nun give me the grace to see that I don’t have all the answers. As I said, in the grand scheme of life these are trivial things, but sometimes life presents us with more than the trivial. What can we do when someone in our family or a friend does in fact need to make changes to how they are living? I’m referring to something as when someone’s behaviour passes from becoming just irritating to being harmful, harmful to themselves rather than harming others. Perhaps that person is simply unable to heal from a hurt they have experienced or they have become fixed into sadness. How many of us find ourselves remarking with some impatience that “he/she should be over it by now”. We dismiss suffering because we make a judgement that we know what’s best. What can we do in this situation? Firstly try not to make judgements. What comes easy to us can be an impossibility for someone else. Remember the Indian saying “Don’t judge a person until you have walked a mile in their moccains”. Adopt the adage that time heals most things; again make no judgement about just how much time is needed. Offer the person love and support. Adopt an attitude to life that celebrates diversity of personalities. Would life be dreary if we all behaved the same? The impetus for this address came to me from a conversation I had with a friend. She was speaking about the fact that her husband was unable to recover from a bereavement. His life was filled with sorrow, time had passed and there seems to be no healing of the pain. She said that she felt that her “JOB” was not to condemn him, or try to fix him, but just to be there to love him just as he is. I found her words incredibly moving. I realised that here was a person who had worked very hard at removing the log from her eye. Notice that she called it a “job”; a job implied persistent effort; it is not a once off task and certainly not easy.
Rev. Bridget Spain |