Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Colossians 3:1-17, 22-25 (click here to read)

In these messy and painful days with the ministry, many members of our staff seem simultaneously more sensitive and easily wounded or offended than usual, and also more likely to cause wounds or give offense. Not a pretty combination. I know it doesn't look good on me! It would be remarkable if we went through the various emotions of grief, etc. at the same time and responded the same way, so these crossed wires are not surprising.

But it sure is tough to be around people who don’t want to admit there’s a problem and think it's traitorous to discuss worst-case scenarios, and then turn around and face people who only see the problem and don’t want to consider that there may be solutions or explore them. Sometimes they are just in grief and it's good to respect that. But sometimes it just seems like stubbornness, bitterness. What is true, what is real, what is best, what should be done? We all seem to have a different grid for these things.

In such days, these words from Paul to believers who had troubles working together seem very appropriate...

3 comments:

TomWebb said...

Hang in there! stay strong. Keep giving your self in love to those in need around you.

Marti said...

I think the M. Scott Peck line was 'life is pain.' Pretty much the same thing... he - and others - have written about the lengths we go to to avoid pain until at last the structures we create for that purpose become, themselves, more painful. That's what a neurosis is, isn't it? But there is a better way. Madeleine L'Engle has a poem: "Pain is a partner I did not request / this is a dance I did not ask to join... if I dance with pain / then may this wedlock be not loss but gain."

Marti said...

Oops, actually, Dave is right. It's "Life is difficult." 'kif kif,' as we learned to say in Arabic - same same - perhaps.