Jagged Little Pride

Swallowed any pride lately? I just did and it was sort of like when you accidently swallow a potato chip that is only partially chewed. You feel it scraping the whole way down and for a split-second you think it just might rip open your throat and kill you. It’s pretty unpleasant, but once it passes there is complete and utter relief because you made it through alive. Yup, that is exactly how I feel.

I wonder what makes saying I’m sorry - or even worse saying I’m wrong - so difficult. Is it the little argument (or occasionally all out war) that you have in your head beforehand? My mind moves swiftly between defense and offense, listing explanations and reasons and excuses about why I am justified in my actions– while that judgmental little voice nags in the back of my head telling me why all those reasons are complete and utter B.S.; and let’s be frank here, I know which voice is right from the beginning, but I try to justify anyway.

Isn’t it frustrating knowing what’s right does not make things easier? You would think righteousness would make everything easier, but it doesn’t because righteousness is holding onto a huge, jagged edged potato chip with wrong written all over it. You have to swallow down all of the wrong in order to get to the right. And boy does it hurt to force it down. It is as if that one little act of taking blame threatens who you are as a person.

It is human to want to believe that we are good, right? We need to trust we are living a life of meaning and justice. Sometimes, I think we hide behind a façade of perfection in hopes that we will be loved for our humanitarian efforts. We seem to think goodness makes us more human somehow. But the truth is much messier isn’t it? We aren’t always good, precisely because we are human. We make mistakes. We get insecure and defensive and flat out careless sometimes. Why is it such a crime to be human in our own minds? How often have you put yourself on trial for behaving poorly? How often do you put others on trial for their humanness? (I personally enjoy these trials much more than my own). Why is it so hard to just let things go? To just live and let live?

Forgiveness is a word that is carelessly thrown around in our culture and so I thought I understood how to forgive and what it conveys. But, I never really grasped its true meaning until I felt real forgiveness for another who had wronged me. It tore down walls within I never knew I had built. Forgiveness created space for love in my heart which cascaded gracefully throughout my life. Eventually that wave of forgiveness allowed me to absolve even myself. There is nothing more freeing than forgiving yourself and those you love for being simple humans. And yet, I still struggle to admit fault.

And so as I sit here, my throat still sore from all I swallowed by accepting blame, feeling the sting of humiliation. I realize it is exactly because I am human that I must sometimes force down my need for righteousness. My humanity demands it from me. Knowing I’m wrong and saying it gives me the opportunity to wash that hard, crooked, sharp potato chip down with the love and relief of a little yellow m&m (The Yellow M&M), and for that I am grateful.