Hard Decisions
A number of years ago, I was in a position of responsibility as a management consultant. I was in a large city and I was called into different businesses to help improve their bottom line. This involved decisions that would create approval or disapproval depending on where what you were doing within the company and whose life you were about to affect.
Hard decisions had to be made, and at one particular business there were some employees who were of my religious affiliation and some involved families that I also knew. I was hesitant to take this particular consultant job, since I knew it could be taken personally. I also sensed that because I knew them personally, or because they were of my faith, they felt I was duty bound to leave them out of whatever negative decisions had to be made. It was during the 80’s when a number of businesses were downsizing or closing and times were tough.
In making these decisions for this particular company, these decisions created not only hard feelings towards myself, but the people involved became very vocal about their anger and they had a lot to say about myself, my family, my friends; there wasn’t much that wasn’t covered. It got worse. It became first a slanted truth, and then out right distortions of truth. I wasn’t surprised because these were decisions that affected their lives. In fact, almost all that we do affects someone somehow.
As I realized that this situation was not going to go away or get better, it started to make me angry. It wasn’t my personal feelings or whims that contributed to those decisions, but it was to keep an entire business from capsizing. Many, many would have lost their jobs if there hadn’t been some trimming of employee costs. Now all of those who were laid off were able to get other jobs fairly rapidly with help from us and this company, but still the anger had hardened and now was firmly in place. Even though we would be involved in church activities together, it was as though I was invisible to them along with my family.
The Invisible Game
The invisible game is a game that is played quite well by a number of people. You talk to everyone else, but pointedly ignore the person you are angry at even though they are standing in the room close to you. Often those in the room are not aware of the game, but you and the person who is angry, are very aware of the game. I’ve watched this game go on for years either between individuals or even within families.
Later on as a counselor I watched the destructive power of: “I’m going to stay angry at you forever and make you pay for the hurt you have caused me!” That is really what it is all about. Sometimes they or we think it is justified righteous indignation, not true. One has to be righteous to have righteous indignation. That counts most of us out, most of the time. Just because we think we are right, doesn’t mean that we have righteous indignation. We just think our view point is right. So we rationalize to ourselves that we have the right to be angry and to do behaviors such as the ignoring game. In the process of our thinking, we think we have the right to ignore people because we don’t think they live up to our personal standards or they have offended us. It is a fairly destructive and powerful weapon. It isn’t shown as anger, but everyone knows what it is underneath the snubs.
Tough time personally
This was a very tough time personally and I finally gave up praying or hoping that the situation would change. These individuals were not going to let this go. It had an affect upon me as it was meant to. I didn’t know what to do with it, and I thought about how to deal with it spiritually. What do you do, when someone won’t forgive you? What do you do when there is one or more within a group or in some cases a family that looks down on you or mistreats you? What do you do with hardened, negative stances from individuals or groups?
Take it to the Christ
I took it to the source of all answers, the Christ, in prayer. Many frustrated and angry prayers later I heard in my heart and mine some very powerful words.
“Look past them!”
What an answer. What did it mean? I was still frustrated and angry and I asked again and got the same answer:
“Look past them!”
Now I was frustrated even more. Look past them to what? Then the third answer:
“Look past them and see me!”
Then I understood. I was to concentrate on my God and stop focusing on them. I was to continue to try as best as I could to carry on with the right spirit in my life. The situation was not going to change; nothing was going to get better, but I could be better.
We really can be nice in the midst of adversity
I than began to think of Christ’s life and how he taught saying, “turn the other cheek”. (Matthew 5: 39) He was so hated by so many, that one would wonder how he did it. Yes, he was the Christ, but he also told us that WE can do it as well. We can turn the other cheek. We can carry that person’s sword another mile more than what we were asked or commanded to do in the first place. (Matthew 5:41) We can give the persons who hate us or won’t forgive us our coat as well as our cloak. (Matthew 5:40) We don’t have to act like them.
Most of Christ’s teachings are about how to deal with each other and how that affects our relationship not only with each other but with our God. Mathew 5 is powerful in dealing with forgiveness. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you,: love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?” ( Matthew 5: 43-48)
I don’t begin to think that I am without faults, and that I, in my lifetime will need a lot of forgiveness from others . I also think I have to work hard to forgive people who have offended or hurt me as well. We don’t have the luxury or option of doing otherwise.
I was talking to a friend of mine about some situations he had gone through regarding dealing with individuals who would not drop their anger towards him. He was in a community where everyone knew everyone, and he told me that he would often go in the evening and fix the fence of the person that he knew hated him. I asked him: “how can you do that?” He told me that he had to. It was the only way that he could keep his own spirit right.
Since that period of time I haven’t had such hardness applied to me as I did in those early years, but I certainly have offended people and people have offended me. What do we do with all of that? We are mortal! We are going to offend each other. I know in counseling that it is critical that we are able to forgive even if it is only from a distance in some extreme cases. It is up to our God to condemn and to punish. Often times we literally have to use a great AA saying: “Let Go and Let God”.
Who am I going to offend today?
No one wakes up in the morning and says, “Now who am I going to offend today?” Yet we often can manage to offend someone in that day. Is it on purpose? Probably not. We are just mortals that have really different personalities and back grounds and we bang into each other. Often we are not even aware that we have just flattened the person we have just walked away from. So, let’s give ourselves and others a break: “Let it go. Let it be. Don’t pass it on!”
Do no Damage!
As far as groups who target individuals or other opinion groups- the one adage that I learned a long time ago, was “Do no damage.” I think that applies to anyone we come in contact with. I watched a young man targeted by a group that disagreed with his stance and he just stood there and basically took it. The group than turned away and this young man then reached down and picked up a bag that had been left by someone in the group as they were walking away. He asked, “Did one of you forget this bag?” As those in the group turned around you could see the conflicting emotion on their faces. They wanted to be angry but they had just seen concern and care from the person they had just verbally attacked. It was a powerful moment. It instantly defused the scene. They didn’t become friends, but one could see that all had become thoughtful and quiet as they walked away.
It is just a moment of weakness!
We don’t have to damage each other on purpose. If we think we have done it accidentally and we can see that we have hurt someone, then let them know. I had someone say to me “oh..I’m sorry. I truly am. It was just a moment of weakness!” How could I, who has had many moments of weakness be angry with someone else and their moments of weakness. Let us just accept that we all are going to have moments of weakness and let it go.
I’ve heard the comment: Oh, I forgive, but I never forget. We all know what that means. It doesn’t mean forgiveness . It means I will remember this and a part of me will hold this grudge forever. Well that part of you will have a little box of un-happiness, because grudge holding, or hurt holding stays in our box and it does us personal harm. It affects our health, our stress levels, and it literally can slow down our minds and our emotions. It simply isn’t worth it. Really look at yourself as I do myself. Have I really, really forgiven those who have offended me? Take it to the Lord in prayer. He has the ability to erase that hurt right out of our little box of hurts. Sometimes our box isn’t so little, and it takes a number of cleanings.
With that in mind let us work together to;
Let it go. “Look past them! Look at me!”
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