Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Puppy Crying: Christian or Southern Behavior?

An inter-web confession: I dropped a puppy and I feel awful.

Last Sunday, after I was leaving church a beautiful couple was walking through our parish parking lot. In tow, they had a six week old puppy. I love puppies! Who doesn’t? In the midst of striking up conversation, I crouched on the ground, distractedly playing with the puppy. They asked if I wanted to pick the puppy up. Of course I wanted to pick the puppy up. So I did. We chatted. And then, I dropped the puppy. In reality, the puppy preformed a dare-devil leap out of my arms, but it felt like I dropped the puppy.

The puppy hurt. It laid on the ground it cried. I felt terrible. The couple tried to calm me down, explaining that it had performed similar feats for others. They would use ice. It would be okay. But I left wondering what damage I had done – Would the puppy recover? Had it had a concussion? Would it have some sort of brain injury? There was no blood, but that puppy fell four feet and it was ugly.

We are not puppies. Unlike that precious puppy, who only had the vocabulary of whimpering, we have words to articulate the ugliness of our pain. We can say where exactly the pain is, what feelings it brings up, and what damage has been done. Although we may not be able to articulate all of that all of the time, we can, for the most part, articulate some of that some of the time. Over and over again this week, I have been confronted with the pain we have caused others and the pain we ourselves feel from the actions of others.

What is surprising to me is that we don’t often use our words. Just like the whimpering puppy, we often do not share outside our inner groaning. Sometimes the pain is too deep, sometimes we ignore it, sometimes we choose not to articulate it. I was reminded this week, by Kay Collier McLaughlin (Deputy for Communications and Leadership Development in our Diocese), that expressing our feelings of hurt is CHRISTIAN behavior. Often, in the South, we confuse being nice with being Christian. This is not always the case. Jesus, who we believe to be our ultimate example, used his words and actions to tell people he was angry when the temple had become a “den of robbers” instead of a “house of prayer” (Matthew 21). When the people of Israel were impatient from waiting too long on Moses, and God, they made a golden calf instead, and God expressed anger (Exodus 32). When the king threw a great wedding banquet and sent his servants out to invite people, his servants were seized, mistreated and killed. And the king was enraged (Matthew 22). Over and over again, scripture gives us examples of how we, God, and Jesus may express anger, hurt, and sadness to those who cause us pain. It doesn’t sound Southern, but it might sound Christian.

I am surprised that in nine full-time church ministry years, very few people have approached me to say, “When you did X, I felt angry.” In nine years of ministry, it would be impossible for me to think that I have not unintentionally hurt anyone. If I can unintentionally drop a puppy on one Sunday, I know I have unintentionally dropped numerous human feelings. Those conversations would not surprise me, and I would welcome them in order to reconcile people to me and towards God. I would treasure those conversations because they would give me an opportunity to grow, to become a better person, and to be closer to the person God desires me to be. If we don’t state our feelings, we don’t give the other person the opportunity to change.

God has gifted us a wonderful vocabulary of feeling words to express our pain. Psychology has given us wonderful tools to express those in ways without further hurt to our neighbor. Anyone, who has ever met with a counselor, knows how to use I statements. “When you did X, I felt Y.” God has given us permission to feel, psychology an example of how to state those feelings. Using a statement which owns your feelings without placing all the blame on the other person, is the perfect medium between Christian truth and Southern nicety. May you and I use our vocabulary for reconciliation, to make the world a better place, and to live into the people we are constantly being created to be.

And for all the dropped puppies out there, I am sorry. I truly am.


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Further reading: Kay Collier McLaughlin, Becoming the Transformative Church: Beyond Sacred Cows, Fantasies, and Fears (New York: Morehouse, 2013). 

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