Look
for the Spaces
“The
butcher begins with a clear vision that 'there are spaces in the
joints,' that he is not dealing with an impenetrable monolith that
needs to be overwhelmed with brute force. There are such 'spaces' in every person, every system, every problem, and seeing them is
essential to right action of every sort.”
Parker
Palmer (The Active Life)
Working
with an eBay store has been a lesson in life for me. I pack and ship one hundred items or more per week—not an Amazon, but still,
for one person, a handful. Sometimes, I make mistakes. I send a
sports card to the wrong person, or I get silver spoon patterns mixed
up. The responses to human error are pretty amazing in their variety
and scope. Some people simply notify us that we've made a mistake,
and we take action to remedy. And some people launch into character
assassination calling me incompetent, and other things too ugly to
write in a spirituality blog. Sometimes they are even aggressive
and threatening—over a sports card, y'all. Or an action figure!
Seriously!
I
always want to respond in kind, which is my nature—meet force with
force, don't you know. It's easy to ignite the “Irish” in my
blood. But my son has taught me to look for the spaces. He may feel
as offended as I, but he responds with soothing words, and never
meets rage with rage. He'd make a good hostage negotiator. It's nice
when you can learn from your children.
Every
situation, if you step back and breathe, has an opening. Moving
forward with an earnest desire to understand what went into creating
this moment, this response in this person, makes all the difference
in outcome. Most of the time, there is a history that's being
exercised—perhaps a painful time when they were
cheated, or hurt, or humiliated. Understanding doesn't make it easier
to be on the receiving end of the wound, but common sense advises us
to refrain from adding fuel to the fire.
Today,
look for openings, spaces in the joint, opportunities to hold back
from brute force. There is enough free floating anger in the world to
fuel an aircraft carrier for years. Let's not add to it.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment