sometimes I just want to rip out a self-righteous roar....

Today something happened that made me angry, embarrassed and frustrated. I had an exchange with someone that was more underneath than it was on the surface. A friend was standing beside me. I couldn’t make eye contact with her. I could feel the confusion. “Why is this person treating you like this, and why is it suddenly so awkward in here??” At least that’s what I felt she felt. But I might have just felt it for myself.

I left the situation in tears. How dare you. How. Dare. You. 

I wanted to toss that hot potato right back at them. Here ya go. You feel some pain for a bit now. 

I’m working it through still. I read lately that if something makes you scared you need to write it.

I’m scared. 

Not of someone else and what they said. Or how they treated me. I’m scared of what this whole situation might say about me. Me. I’m scare of what’s inside me. It’s like someone went rifling through my garbage cans in the back alley, cans that are no one’s business because I threw them out. It was my garbage. I had control of it. I put it there. And now someone dumped out on the sidewalk what I wish could have quietly gone to the dump.

I love being with people who see the gold in me and draw it to the surface to make me shine. It’s quite fantastic. I love them. I love myself when I am with them. A lot. 

And then there are these other people. It feels like sandpaper inside the moment we make eye contact. The air sucks out of the room and there is no right answer. I start to slouch, or my back goes up and I clench my fists.  Suddenly I’m a little girl in a dirty dress with her fists clenched, tears streaming down my face, fighting for my space, “yes I am.. I am  too! I am too - full of gold and special and you can’t say I’m not because you’re not my mom and I don’t have to listen to you!” 

Obviously this is all in my head and my heart...

Why? Why can’t there just be gold in here? Why am I not just good old golden me everywhere I go, every situation I face? Every person I face?

Then there are funny sayings like “love your enemy” and “Do good to those who despitefully use you” or “do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Seriously. Good thing I don’t have any enemies (that I know of.. for sure..), at least not anyone who personally hates my guts, because I wouldn’t know what to do with them. I can barely get through “that person didn’t treat me nice enough.” What would I do with overt “mean-ness”!! 

Road rage used to freak me out. One little flick of a bird flying by in a passing car and my heart would be done. The outrage! Why would they give me such a vile gesture? I don’t deserve that! I’m a great person. I’m sorry for being in your lane. I’m sorry I didn’t move fast enough. No wait. Why would you do that? You’re the jerk! You have the anger problem. You.... you..  It would bug me for hours. That little finger flying by would crush me from the inside out. 

When I go through a tough circumstance, my stuff comes to the surface. When we don’t all love everything about me, it causes me pain to realize there are actual real things about me that suck. 

It’s hard to face the fact that I’m not all wonderful. But what to do about it? I can run away and hide... Another great option is to just point fingers and stay away from mirrors. Make them wrong. Make them wrong. Make THEM wrong. 

Throw that hot potato.

“What if my anger, my fear, my loneliness were never mistakes, but invitations? What if in skipping the pain, I was missing my lessons? Instead of running away from my pain, was I supposed to run toward it? PERHAPS PAIN WAS NOT A HOT POTATO AFTER ALL, but a traveling professor. Maybe instead of slamming the door on pain, I need to throw open the door wide and say, Come in. Sit down with me. And don’t leave until you’ve taught me what I need to know.”     - “Love Warrior,” Glennon Doyle Melton 

This morning can't be about hurt feelings that make me fester and refuse to face facts. I need to face them fully, shake hands, get to know them. No, I am not my issues. I am not my faults. But I still need to look at the stuff I’m dealing with - that CAN change so that the true me, can emerge with growing levels of luster and brilliance as I take life as an opportunity and invitation to learn, not an opportunity to demolish anyone who looks like my opposition.

Today, instead of a pity-party (where I can wallow and dig myself deeper into why I am superior, quite-in-the-right, and they are wrong and to be avoided, or on the other hand, why-I-am-defective-or-damaged-and-incompetent-in-relationships-and-should-just-quit-now),  I have the privilege of a visiting professor who desperately wants to teach me. Me.  The prof wants time with me, and we are going to sit down and look back at that exchange this morning with curiosity and pull back the layers to learn. Not revisit with anger or a desire for revenge. Because that other person is gold too. I’m just not quite sure why I can’t connect with it. Yet. I’ll bet the professor knows. 

PS... this happens in churches and Christian circles all the time. ALL the time. It's all I wanted to do all day. It FEEEEEEEELS so good to self-righteously go after someone.. after they have made an actual mistake ... and they are not there to apologize or defend themselves.  What if we stopped in the middle of the thing we were right about and they were mean, ignorant, intolerant, rude, or impatient about... and what if... what if we were curious instead of defensive. What if we sat with ourselves long enough to open up the invitation to learn...

What if, huh.