Dock thoughts…
Your airwaves are being invaded… the start of a new year means that I’m up at what–the–flip o’clock, live on Radio Ulster for the next few Wednesday mornings.
This is a good discipline, because it forces me to have some Thoughts. So here is the Thought I thunk this week:
I had a bit of a rough start to 2015. On New Year’s Day my much–loved Aunty Marguerite passed away and so the first few days of the new year have had a sad little cloud over them
What that means of course is that so far in 2015 I’ve been prickly, moody, impatient, distracted and generally a complete pain
And to me that’s ok, because I know why – and so I cut myself some slack
When you’re going through a difficult time yourself, you wish that somehow the rest of the world could unilaterally agree to treat you gently for a little while, to go easy on you and be a bit more patient and forgiving than usual. It would be nice to have a little sign floating around above my head that says: I’m having a hard day – please be nice to me
There’s a great quote, of disputed origin, that goes like this:
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle that you know nothing about
I really do believe that. In the honesty box cafe in Titanic Quarter [what an amazing place that must be], there’s a cosy prayer garden tucked in the corner with a wall covered in prayers written on post–its and sticky notes.
I’m so humbled every time I glance through some of those notes; people are praying about and living through every kind of trial and difficulty you can imagine – family breakdown, ill health, issues around self harm or abuse or despair.
But when you look out across the cafe you’d never know; the place is filled with chat and laughter and the buzz of animated conversations over cups of coffee. But the post–its show that under the surface, people are living through all sorts of battles that I know nothing about. So I’ll try to go easy on them if they drop jam on the carpet.
I wonder if that’s part of what Jesus meant when he challenged his disciples to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’. It’s easy to love ourselves, in the sense of sympathising with our own struggles and difficulties, because we know all too well the problems we are facing. It’s more difficult to love our neighbours when it seems like they’re just being a complete pain and we don’t necessarily know why.
Let’s be honest, some people are a complete pain and that’s just the end of the story. But how much more likely is it, most of the time, that someone who is driving you up the wall is a decent person who is having a hard day.
So be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle that you know nothing about.
Chris Bennett