Tag: talk

Why are you fighting with each other?

Silva

When you stop to think about the reasons people get mad at each other, what do you find?  Something has been violated to be sure, but what?  What about anger?  There is none who avoid anger – not even Jesus did.  Of course His anger wasn’t unrighteous but what made it righteous over against unrighteous?  (BTW, an excellent book on anger is Robert Jones’ book “Uprooting Anger: Biblical Help for a Common Problem“.) Or, given my last post with the voice-over from John Piper, what about politics?  How do people of great conviction navigate in that realm?  Are we supposed to believe that it is ONLY a dirty profession with callous and self-serving people?  I’d hardly call a man like Henry Hyde a self-serving dirtbag!  They’re out there to be sure, but ALL of them?  I think not.

So, folks getting mad at each other?  Why?  Or angry, why?  Or politics, why? I’ve been thinking  about this lately as I consider my parenting: I’ve got a pile of kids and a pile of mess.  Verbal sparring is a reality but why?  I think part of our problem is that we are actively engaging people not on the basis of whether something is right or wrong (in the objective and biblical sense) but right or wrong as I define it.  We define right and wrong in one of two ways only: internally (I write the rules) or externally (someone else writes them).

I’ve watched VERY young children act out in amazingly sophisticated ways.  Any parent will tell you that little Johnny and Susie weren’t taught to say “no,” they just do it.  That grows and blooms into a worldview where we easily define what is right and wrong and that’s what we pursue in relationships.  We hold two rulebooks in our hands all the time: mine and God’s.  Think of a balance: my rulebook on the left, God’s on the right.  If we hold these two rulebooks equally, then if you violate God’s rule or mine, the consequences (as I meet them out) are the same.  Other options include mine over God’s (my response to your violation: harshness, coarse language, grumpy, silent treatment…you get the idea); God’s over mine (my response to your violation: gentleness, firmness, restoration-aimed…you see the difference?).

Back to the balance: in my left hand, is my rule book. My “rule book” is life according to me.  It is how you should act.  It doesn’t usually include how I should act, just you.  (Maybe a chapter in there about me but many in there about you.)  They include things like: don’t criticize me unless I ask you to; don’t instruct me unless I ask you; don’t fail to call me back when I call you; don’t send me texts; vote R–; don’t drink PBR…you get the idea.

When you violate one of my rules, what have you done?  Have you sinned against me?  No.  You’ve violated a preference; you’ve acted in a way that I’d rather you didn’t.  In the end, who cares – I need to get over it (in the church we call this “Christian Freedom”).  When it concerns my rulebook, I can’t compel you to act as I would want you to.  Here’s the catch: I STILL try because at the heart of it all I think you SHOULD obey my rules just as you would obey God’s.  As I pursue my rules in your life if you fail to obey, we fight. All of this is wrong, of course.  You would be right to tell me to pound sand as I ask you to obey my rules.

Now, in my right hand I hold God’s rules as we read them in the Bible.  If you violate one of them, I’d be right to confront you, be angry, etc.  God gives His people the right to be in each other’s lives with His rulebook.  If you lied to me, I would be right to warn you that’s a sin against me: you would’ve violated a rule that God clearly gives in the Bible to govern our conduct (Ephesians 4:15).  If, however, you told me truth in the “wrong place” (my rule) then I’d have no right to get chapped at you.  How many spouses (men especially) get ticked because the other confronts in a place they’d rather not have to deal with it?  Man, do I hear that a lot (even lived through that one)!

Let’s review:

Rulebook #1 (mine) = preferences.

Rulebook #2 (God’s) = sin.

If you find yourself in a sparring match you would be well served to ask if you are holding up your end of the fight because someone has violated one of your precious preferences.  If so, get over it and yourself.  Put down your weapon and realize that the other person is no more obligated to obey your preferences than you are to obey his.

If we were more inclined to hold to the Word of God in the Bible and ask people to hold to that as well and that only, we would fight less.  Ask someone close to you to help you with your list of preferences that drive them crazy – I’m sure it won’t take long.

Your inside voice, not your stadium voice

Silva

Do you know the differences between “inside voice” “outside voice” and “stadium voice”?

I’ll never forget when a good friend was teasing a high school boy – who was as loud as a DC-9 after lift off – he said, “Daniel, use your inside voice, not your stadium voice.”

I was rolling – the kid was incredibly loud so my man was right on. When I think of stadium voice, I remember screaming – until my gut hurt – that the Navy QB would not be able to make his calls and Army be able to squash him like a grape! (BTW, when I was there, we regularly did…)

Here’s an excerpt from an article that made me think of that exchange:

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatechange

This guy is using his stadium voice and it is annoying. It surpasses annoying because annoying simply implies that I have the problem (maybe I do). But this dude definitely has passed through dramatic-to-make-a-point and crossed over into we-can’t-talk-to-each-other-anymore.

That’s what this is about: civility. Here’s another excerpt from a different article:

August is the wettest and often the muggiest month of the year. Yet, summer heat continues in short supply, continuing a trend that has dominated much of the 21st Century’s opening decade. There have been only 162 days 90 degrees or warmer at Midway Airport over the period from 2000 to 2008. That’s by far the fewest 90-degree temperatures in the opening nine years of any decade on record here since 1930.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-tom-skilling-explainer-13aug13,0,918946.story

Let’s just say this could be anecdotal evidence that an opponent of Mr. Stadium Voice would use in a dialog or debate. Would he hear it? Or, would the bearer of such evidence speak in such a way that he would even be inclined to do so? OK, so you’ve got people who refuse to honor people by hearing them out about Global Warming. What’s next? What qualifies as a topic that is REALLY worth getting heated about? Is getting heated-so-I-can’t-hear-anything-except-my-own-screaming ever appropriate?

You know, having lived at various times in Bickerville – as an active participant – I’ve needed someone to get in my face and tell me something hard. One of the foundational tenets of life is that men and women are blind to how bad / sinful they really are. Now, if we exist in a time of decreasing civility, that means many things not the least of which is that I will grow less and less willing to hear hard things when I need them. And if I won’t hear hard things and you won’t hear hard things and that becomes common, imagine that culture.

You know, this lack of civility really chaps me.