Love...
"Murder or stealing or adultery might be a flashing, neon blue line, but gossip is often only a faint silver thread: innocent, hard to distinguish. But then when I look back on a conversation, it strays so very far away from what love is supposed to look like."
Sarah Edwards is brilliant.
She also happened to touch on a subject I had been thinking about lately. I gripe a lot lately and if it's starting to getting on my nerves I'm scared to think of how it looks to everybody else. They must be thinking...geez is she on her period all the time or what?...I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be the person, or even a person, who is always talking behind somebody's back. I don't want to say anything about anybody that I haven't told them to their face.
When I was growing up I was taught that talking behind somebody's back was wrong because the person wasn't there to defend themselves. However my recent line of thinking goes beyond that. I think it's wrong because, as Sarah said, it's not love. If somebody's behavior is irksome or annoying or worse actually dangerous and stupid, and I tell everybody except them how I feel about it then not only am I not expressing love because I'm spending all my time speaking negatively about something, I am also not expressing love because in the end the person can't know to change a behavior if they are not aware of it and nobody tells them. So it is grossly unfair for me to complain about something to somebody else before I have informed the subject of said annoyance. If it were me I'd want my friends to tell me.
I have several very honest friends who told me that my driving sucked and was scary...I changed the way I drive. It took a little while and working on a lot of insurance claims to really see what everybody was talking about, but all the forces combined with three months of driving out west changed the way I drive. I don't think I'm the best driver out there and I get very nervous when I think I'm with somebody who will be critical of my driving, but I'm generally a safe driver and people aren't scared to ride with me anymore. Or maybe they just don't tell me anymore....oh dear...
Anyway...that's beside the point...what I'm trying to say is that I either need to be honest with friends if something bothers me, or I need to keep my mouth shut. Period.
Sarah Edwards is brilliant.
She also happened to touch on a subject I had been thinking about lately. I gripe a lot lately and if it's starting to getting on my nerves I'm scared to think of how it looks to everybody else. They must be thinking...geez is she on her period all the time or what?...I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be the person, or even a person, who is always talking behind somebody's back. I don't want to say anything about anybody that I haven't told them to their face.
When I was growing up I was taught that talking behind somebody's back was wrong because the person wasn't there to defend themselves. However my recent line of thinking goes beyond that. I think it's wrong because, as Sarah said, it's not love. If somebody's behavior is irksome or annoying or worse actually dangerous and stupid, and I tell everybody except them how I feel about it then not only am I not expressing love because I'm spending all my time speaking negatively about something, I am also not expressing love because in the end the person can't know to change a behavior if they are not aware of it and nobody tells them. So it is grossly unfair for me to complain about something to somebody else before I have informed the subject of said annoyance. If it were me I'd want my friends to tell me.
I have several very honest friends who told me that my driving sucked and was scary...I changed the way I drive. It took a little while and working on a lot of insurance claims to really see what everybody was talking about, but all the forces combined with three months of driving out west changed the way I drive. I don't think I'm the best driver out there and I get very nervous when I think I'm with somebody who will be critical of my driving, but I'm generally a safe driver and people aren't scared to ride with me anymore. Or maybe they just don't tell me anymore....oh dear...
Anyway...that's beside the point...what I'm trying to say is that I either need to be honest with friends if something bothers me, or I need to keep my mouth shut. Period.
posted by Elizabeth | 9:36 AM
2 Comments:
ah, wonderfully random. i'm sitting in Ardmore, OK right now...working night shift, except that i haven't started workign yet. they had a power outage today and so i didn't have to go in, which means that i have to stay up all night for no reason so that i can sleep tomorrow and start tomorrow night. uhg. why don't we do our dream jobs?? is it a lack of trust in God, are we afraid, or what?? do we not understand that this life is a one-time gig? i guess i'm just frusturated...but anyway, keep up the good work. =)
Hmm, I like this. I also just discovered that I can comment on your blog without having a blogger account. Wonderful. As such, perhapes I'll start commenting occasionally, and I think you should do likewise on mine, because I'm such a sucker for comments. Miss you!
sarah
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