Posted by David Hiran Watson in Everyday Life, People, Random Thoughts, Relationships.
Everyone is different. I was thinking about that just now while reading and responding to Greg’s comment to my previous post. Actually I’ve had this thought before.
Specifically, everyone has a different view of the world. Everyone reacts and acts differently. Everyone is just different – even those who are supposed to be cut from the same tree!
So perhaps it’s no surprise when you ask for support, or share something of yourself, another person will (more often than not) respond in a way you weren’t expecting or even hoping. Perhaps they’ll respond the EXACT opposite of how you would’ve responded!
I think this is one aspect of people and relationships I never realised when I was younger. As such, this is one of those things you learn as you mature that has most surprised me. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised.
So what do we share with our loved ones if they are most likely to respond not as we wanted or even hoped?
DH
Posted by David Hiran Watson in Daily Life-Walk, Faith, God, People, Relationships, Social Justice.
Tags: God, Jesus Christ, Kenny Luck, The Irreligious Christ, The Meeting House
So, as I wrote in Ways to deliberate, yesterday I had a book study on Dream: Have You Caught God’s Vision? (here’s the Amazon link). The chapter we covered is called The Velvet Touch, and talks about the people we tend to shy away from, and the subjects of inclusion and exclusion. While the book is geared toward men, this chapter applies to all people, and challenges the reader to look at how and why Jesus was so inclusive in who He associated with and ministered to.
The fact is that Jesus was EXTREMELY counter-cultural to the establishment of His day. I think that is something as Christians we tend to forget, for we have become used to the wedding of church and state that occurred for many decades and (I think) is still ingrained in western Christendom’s psyche. Perhaps the degree of ingraining is lessening, but we still do not en masse view Jesus’ message the way the 1st century Jews and early Christians would have.
Some of the things we tossed about during the discussion were the types of people each of us tends to shy away from, and also the various reasons why we exclude. Reasons such as: a focus on a person’s inabilities as oppose to his/her abilities; a failure to look beyond the external and see that person as a person – someone who has hopes and dreams and likes and dislikes and a personality; fear of rejection or judgment from others if we’re seen associating with this person; and the list goes on.
A couple of points of hope we ended on were that firstly, recognising the tendency to exclude within us is the first step to changing (think Step 1 in a 12-step AA program). Secondly, our responsibility is not to just recognise when we are being exclusive, but when others around us are, and even point it out to them. This should be done in love and with gentleness, but should sometimes be done nonetheless. The person who is excluding another may not even realise they are doing so, and may appreciate it being pointed out to them in a supportive way.
DH
PS. I may post some more on the idea of Jesus being counter-cultural. If you’re interested in hearing more, and especially if you’ve never heard Jesus being described that way, check out The Meeting House and specifically the sermon series The Irreligious Christ by teaching pastor Bruxy Cavey.
Posted by David Hiran Watson in God, People, Relationships.
Tags: crying, Psalm 23, Relationships, spilled milk
Why do some people cry over spilled milk? I mean that in the figurative sense, but it is very frustrating! Instead of responding with the recognition that it is a trivial thing, and that the milk can be replaced, these people insist on putting the milk above – as in more important than – the person who spilled the milk. WHY?!?!
I suppose one possibility is a sense of insecurity within that person who is doing the crying. This would be akin to one of the reasons why some people horde: growing up they developed a sense of insecurity and fear of going without, so they horde as a security blanket. Coming back to the spilled milk people, what is just as frustrating is trying to tell the person who is crying that it’s not a big deal. I usually receive responses of justification as to why it’s not bad that they are crying over spilled milk. The frustrating part is trying to make them see that I’m not berating them for caring about spilled milk. Whether the spilling was accidental or not, you still have X amount of money ‘down the drain’. But that doesn’t justify putting spilled milk at a higher priority level than a human being. It doesn’t justify indirectly giving the spiller a message that they shouldn’t, even accidentally, spill milk.
This also doesn’t make sense as a Christian, and especially when all the parties involved are Christians. God has promised to be our security, to take care of us. The famous Psalm 23, which both Christians and non-Christians know, speaks of that very promise. Yet, if the Lord is our Shepherd, then why are afraid of ‘wasting’ inconsequential things? Don’t get me wrong – for those whom that cup of milk was their last cup, the milk wasn’t so inconsequential an item. Yet, even in that case, I think that people should have more worth on each of our internal lists of what we hold dear than milk (or any other material object for that matter).
DH
