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Contradictory Perfection
We welcome NL Community member Marla Thurman as today’s guest blogger.
After 20 years of teaching English, you’d think I’d know better than to use generalizations. “People are so selfish!” I will gripe. Or, “People are so closed-minded!”
One night I was taking my friend Tom to dinner. As I drove, we became engrossed in a discussion about an upcoming retreat and I drove right by the restaurant. Noticing my mistake immediately, I smacked my steering wheel and shouted, “People are so stupid!”
It is such a good thing Tom loves me. With a grin nearly pulling his mouth all over his face, he said, “People are stupid???”
I laughed then, so hard I had to stop the car, and I still laugh at this story and tell it to everyone with great joy at every opportunity, but a great lesson was learned that night. Not by “people,” either. By me.
People are stupid, sometimes. So am I. Sometimes. And like the generic “people” mentioned in the beginning of this tale, I can be selfish and closed-minded. Not to mention a whole slew of other not-so-flattering things.
But you know what? People are also loving! People are kind! People go out of their way to do good things! People are lovely and sympathetic and brilliant and giving and strong. People are witty and wonderful and zany! Sometimes I can even be a few of those things, too.
We are God’s creations, and this is the only explanation I have for how we—people—can be so many different things at the same time. Only God is capable of creating beings so crazily contradictory and so perfect at the same time.
What is your favorite observance about the people in your life?
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{ 5 comments }
Interesting blog and it ties into something I’ve been exploring lately in prayer – relationships and people….I’ve had many people in my life…some have been wonderful blessings and others, I can honestly say I wish I’d never met. If I have to pick one “favorite” observation about people? I think that it never ceases to amaze me at the human capacity to grow and adapt. We change and transform throughout our lives and this ability helps us to draw closer to Heaven.
i hear you, kcm. i have plenty of people i wish i’d never met–many blood relatives–but i can say without hesitation that the wonderful ones outnumber the nasty. and i truly hope and pray for the redemption of the rest (not to mention me).
When I try to calculate all the people, positive and negative, lovely and unlovely, helpful and hurtful, who have touched my life in some way, the thought staggers me. I don’t remember who said it, but even those who caused me pain or disappointment or just ignored me had some effect on creating my character. I’m thankful for the people God used to influence and mold me.
I love this blog! And I agree with both prior commenters, though all the people I’ve known have added threads to the tapestry of my life. When I was younger, I used to be pretty confrontational. On occasion, when I think the situation warrants, I still can be. But generally, I’ve found that a softer line, and the recognition that maybe…just maybe…I need to be kinder and to laugh at myself and to give myself permission not to be perfect a bit more, has produced better results.
People have either been very good to my life, or not at all. It’s got a lot to do with my focus on people as a whole, rather than just a day or a deed. I can still see two people who shaped me the most, that really gave me that “breath of life” as a little girl, to keep going and live happily.