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Dalton
Roberts |
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My sister called and told me about a woman
telling a friend who was trying to counsel her, “I am not ready to
improve my life. I am still in the complaining stage.” How many people do you know who are exactly like
that? And if you will allow me to quit preaching and start meddling, how
many times have you been like that? I have been there and bought a tee shirt saying,
“Please don’t help me! I want to whine some more.” What is this ghastly streak that impels us to
reject improvement and fan the flames of our pain? Maybe it isn’t all
that ghastly. What if it is perfectly human? Part of it is a deep need for empathy.
“Sympathy” means to feel for someone but “empathy” means to feel
with someone. Sympathy is better than nothing but there’s nothing
better than knowing someone understands exactly how we feel. If that husband runs off with some hussy, it
makes you so mad you could chew up a railroad spike and spit out nails.
Even if someone could tell you a formula to immediately make it feel
better, you wouldn’t want it. First you want to use up all your old
cuss words and invent a few new ones. Then you may be willing to accept
someone’s formula that will make it all disappear from the blackboard
of your mind. No way we are going to miss our adrenalin fling. Another thing at work here is the need to draw a
crowd. If the first person you seek out for empathy completely calms and
restores you, think of all the people you didn’t get to gush your
outrage upon. The very idea
that we can be healed in one session is scary. It smacks of Ernest
Angley and a pop to the forehead. Before opening the door to Ernest, we
want our time with Jerry Springer. There is nothing like airing out old
dirty feelings to a big audience. It drains the little venom glands
right under our fangs. Did you ever upset someone with some unconscious
remark, causing them to pitch a world class hissy and disappear from
your field of vision. Then before you were able to locate the precious
little offended thing and apologize or gain an understanding of the
reprehensible deed you had done, you start running into their friends
who give you an “I hate you” stare and say things like, “I cannot
believe how you treated poor Vera.” Here you are wondering what
you’ve done and it’s already on the six o’clock news and
billboards all over town. People like that love a crowd. You never need to
worry that they will suffer in silence. I once had a cat that would
intentionally doze in walking paths around the house. When you’d step
on her tail, she would shriek and screech all over the house. She wanted
everyone to know what a thoughtless cad you were. She lived for her
screeches and poutings like we live for our whinings. If you offend
someone, just hope and pray they don’t belong to some crazy motorcycle
gang. It could cost your life. If you unintentionally peeved someone,
wouldn’t it be rough dying for something you didn’t even know you
had done? Well the good news is you’d get to heaven first and could
tell Saint Peter and all the apostles about it before your killers got
there. You’d be walking up and down golden streets for years telling
all the angels, “You won’t believe what this crazy motorcycle gang
did to me!” It dawns upon me that we wouldn’t need to go
to heaven if we ever got to the place we didn’t need a complaining
stage but went directly into a solution stage. We would have us a heaven
on earth. Tell me now, who is ready for that?
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