Critical People
Matthew 5:11
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Today, no picture. Image free. Use your imagination. Intriguing how pictures might actually diminish our ability to perceive. Our minds can generate pictures internally, and often more creatively than a provided picture if we give it the opportunity. You have my permission to visionate. Images may not be royalty free, words still are.
With both my readings of Calvin and St. Francis on the Sermon on the Mount, not foreseeing the parallelism ahead of time between the books, I have been pondering the Beatitudes. All of it runs counter to human nature and I suppose that is Jesus's point. His listeners must have been like "Whaaaa....?" Whereas the miracle bread and fishes were easy to eat, these teachings are a hard dish.
What we see in His teachings are a radically new way to view human relationships. Far from being platitudes, these principles are ground zero on topics that are sources of great pain. Let us examine Matthew 5:11 above. No one likes to be criticized. Even when the criticism is deserved, my reaction is typically akin to swallowing a horse pill. I will choke it down. How about when the criticism is false, or quite a bit over-the-top as to be untrue in the exaggeration? Keep your poison to yourself.
I am particularly sensitive to criticism. When a child, I had (and have) Learning Disabilities. Being called "retarded" by at least one teacher overtly and unabashedly, and a kid in the neighborhood who used to come up to the small yellow school bus and call me Ricky Retardo (a play on I Love Lucy's Ricky Ricardo) as well in general just not getting it (whatever "It" is, telling time, tying shoelaces), caused me to develop a lot of Maginot-like Line defenses. Eventually, I became dismissive of critical people, figuring that they had their own issues. It took me a long-time to get there to that realization, and even longer to crank the filters down to let legit feedback enter in. Filters are intended to take out the bad and let in the pure. Hurtful words, properly intended, can be quite helpful. Still a struggle to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another." Not to mention the internal self-critic. My most-used word for myself in this practice is "Dumb-Ass."
What Jesus is zeroing in on is when criticism in entirely incorrect and false. Truth is not a trait of humanity. Ever since the Garden, mankind has been at war against the Truth. Most of us practice adequately truth with a small t. But as Romans 1 states, on the Big Truth, we are consistently and chronically exchanging the Truth for a Lie. Like we are entitled to happiness in this world, lots of stuff, and no problems. My take on Jesus's teaching is to recognize that we must transcend humanity's inclination for error, misjudgment or just plain lies. God is the only authority on Truth. Seeking approval from the capricious crowd is so conditional. Look at Christ, from "Hallelujah" to "Crucify Him" within 24 hours. Recognizing this, should we not expect people to denigrate us unfairly and make our peace with this and instead give it to God and let Him arbitrate and adjudicate?
Our consciences properly empowered will either excuse or accuse us, or find the balance between what is true and what is false. Trust the process, trust the Provider of the process. Truth, like Resurrection, can't be kept down forever.
With both my readings of Calvin and St. Francis on the Sermon on the Mount, not foreseeing the parallelism ahead of time between the books, I have been pondering the Beatitudes. All of it runs counter to human nature and I suppose that is Jesus's point. His listeners must have been like "Whaaaa....?" Whereas the miracle bread and fishes were easy to eat, these teachings are a hard dish.
What we see in His teachings are a radically new way to view human relationships. Far from being platitudes, these principles are ground zero on topics that are sources of great pain. Let us examine Matthew 5:11 above. No one likes to be criticized. Even when the criticism is deserved, my reaction is typically akin to swallowing a horse pill. I will choke it down. How about when the criticism is false, or quite a bit over-the-top as to be untrue in the exaggeration? Keep your poison to yourself.
I am particularly sensitive to criticism. When a child, I had (and have) Learning Disabilities. Being called "retarded" by at least one teacher overtly and unabashedly, and a kid in the neighborhood who used to come up to the small yellow school bus and call me Ricky Retardo (a play on I Love Lucy's Ricky Ricardo) as well in general just not getting it (whatever "It" is, telling time, tying shoelaces), caused me to develop a lot of Maginot-like Line defenses. Eventually, I became dismissive of critical people, figuring that they had their own issues. It took me a long-time to get there to that realization, and even longer to crank the filters down to let legit feedback enter in. Filters are intended to take out the bad and let in the pure. Hurtful words, properly intended, can be quite helpful. Still a struggle to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another." Not to mention the internal self-critic. My most-used word for myself in this practice is "Dumb-Ass."
What Jesus is zeroing in on is when criticism in entirely incorrect and false. Truth is not a trait of humanity. Ever since the Garden, mankind has been at war against the Truth. Most of us practice adequately truth with a small t. But as Romans 1 states, on the Big Truth, we are consistently and chronically exchanging the Truth for a Lie. Like we are entitled to happiness in this world, lots of stuff, and no problems. My take on Jesus's teaching is to recognize that we must transcend humanity's inclination for error, misjudgment or just plain lies. God is the only authority on Truth. Seeking approval from the capricious crowd is so conditional. Look at Christ, from "Hallelujah" to "Crucify Him" within 24 hours. Recognizing this, should we not expect people to denigrate us unfairly and make our peace with this and instead give it to God and let Him arbitrate and adjudicate?
Our consciences properly empowered will either excuse or accuse us, or find the balance between what is true and what is false. Trust the process, trust the Provider of the process. Truth, like Resurrection, can't be kept down forever.
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