A discussion again.
Today I woke from a dream with Kathleen and Steve, their daughters Alice and Aartje, the talk about the poetry contest and attending it, my blog post and Kathleen’s edit of it, rowing a boat to the steps of the house where we lived, and the feeling about where we lived had Grandma Aartje Smith’s feeling but we didn’t see her.
The discussion I have is about the communication involved here. Then what happened to me and Tim as we communicated in our living together today. The special thing about our communication was that there was no stern speaking even when Tim bumped his head on a cupboard door corner that I had left open. I just felt badly that he bumped his head. He said Amy, would you be willing to close the doors of the cupboards when you use them? I said yes I will, I am sorry that I left it open. There is so much that you can feel from the tone of someone’s voice when they speak. Especially when they are hurt. You can tell if they want to blame you for your part in what happened to them. You can tell if they have hope for the future. You can tell if you are their target or if there is something else. You can tell if you can talk more about it or leave it alone because of their feeling of negativity.
I thought of the many interactions we’ve experienced since we’ve been married again. He is more willing to ask what he calls probing questions. I am more willing to assess the nature of the probing questions before I answer. Sometimes he has many questions, one after the other, before I have a chance to answer, as I still consider the situation he’s talking about. I have told him how I appreciate his kindness for considering me. I told him once again this morning as we decided about who should shower first. And again as we talked about the food we were preparing for the community. He loves to prepare food! It takes planning. It takes energy and creativity. It is interesting to me how his food preparation equates with his writing. He is very intelligent about putting together words. He gets ideas going and forms stories and random thoughts can often teach a lesson for you to choose how you feel. He doesn’t pretend to know so much about philosophy or philanthropy to persuade someone to think or feel one way or another. What he does know is asking questions and postulating answers that are opposite of truth! And he knows that the things he writes are opposite of obvious truth because it makes people laugh!!!
He will do things around the house that I see as bungling. When I see him do bungling things I ask why he does that and he says It’s just me. An example is when he rinses his hands in the kitchen sink he will then search for a towel. I have a hand towel to the left of the sink and he will look at it and turn away from it and look for the dish towel. Another example is when we put things in our gym bag. I have my things on one end and his things on the other. He will search through my things first and when he doesn’t find his stuff then he will go to the other end and find one thing. Then search through my things again, when he doesn’t find his stuff he will go to find another thing on his side. He will do this enough times that my things are all in disarray and his stuff is finally out of the bag. I am mentioning this because there are times that if a person wanted to be efficient they could be with the way I packed things. He isn’t concerned about efficiency in the gym bag and so I watch and am amazed. However this same behavior is pervasive and he knows it not, that is to say he doesn’t know it!
He was working with the electronic things on the computer trying to get efficient with his re-writing time. He would be frustrated with taking so much time at paring down an article or working with the word processing part of editing. I tried to show him keyboard shortcuts but that was a type of information that was not ready to become part of his idea of efficiency. So he hunts and pecks for document editing. He then creates new words instead of rearranging what is already there. I recognize that his habit is looking where something is not before looking where something might be. He has worked through much anger in the process of going to the wrong place first. He is learning the joy of stopping himself from feeling too much anger and then thinking what else he can do. Sometimes he will call me and we’ll talk about the process. I have never treated him with any negativity or belittling when he does. He will always be thankful for being shown the thing to do. I always say you’re welcome. There have been times that I wanted to ask why he does the wrong thing first but then I have seen it as his pattern so I allow it.
Allowing without judgment or recrimination is the way we learn best. This was done for me. I have had patterns of wrong thinking that have actually hurt other people’s feelings and hurt their life. Allowing me to see my own actions is the only thing that taught me. How else is life to be experienced for good? Know this that every soul is free to choose his life and what he’ll be. For this eternal truth to us is given, that God will force no man to heaven. He’ll call, persuade, direct right, instruct in wisdom, love and light. In nameless ways be good and kind but never force the human mind.
The word kind is a keyword. We think it means one thing and it actually means another. “Kind” is the law of the harvest. What you plant is what you will get. If you plant one KIND of seed you will get that KIND. (not the plant of your imagination but the plant of your actual seed.) When you plant a seed of corn you will get a corn plant. You will get the fruit of the corn plant if you wait long enough for it to mature. Planting the seeds of the spirit is realized in the same way. You get what you plant. Recognizing the plant you have is the elusive part. As children are born into this world they are blessed with the childlike trust in God that we as adults want when we see it. They have many spiritual gifts that experiences can either help them develop or they can choose to deny. That is the choice in life given to every single person. Every single moment, every single person, every single day.
Where all this is going is a point of spiritual awakening. God always gives us the kind of thing we want. Sometimes (nearly 99.9% of the time) we don’t know what it is we wanted! We thought we wanted the riches and honor of the world. But what we really wanted was greed! What does greed look like when we get it? It looks like the nasty thing we see in others as they “hurt” us or “annoy” us. Think about what your spirit was desiring when you thought of the riches and honor. What were you going to do with it? Were you going to praise God and help his children? Were you going to consume the riches and honor upon yourself?
No comments:
Post a Comment