“Which of you desires life, and covets many days to enjoy good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.
Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.” Psalm 34:12-14
Years ago, Carrie and I got into a spat as we were getting ready for the workday. I forget the specifics but knowing me, I probably made a snarky comment. Icy silence ensued, a sure sign I was in the doghouse. I knew I had to move into that silence and repair the hurt I had caused. Thinking quickly, I grabbed a broom from the garage, hung a white T-shirt on the end of it, and waved it around a corner as a signal of conciliation. When I heard Carrie chuckle, I knew I had broken the ice and we began the process of apology and rapprochement.
So much of relational care has to do with the work of peacemaking, the humble task of repairing the wounds we inflict when we live in close proximity to one another. Even with the best of intentions, people who care about each other inevitably cause each other pain. Psalm 34 above offers wisdom both for avoiding injuring others (“keep your tongue from evil”) and for repairing the injuries we cause (“…seek peace, and pursue it”).
Richard Beck is a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University, the author of eight books, and an insightful blogger. Following a misunderstanding between his wife and son Brenden, he reflected with his son as they drove to church.
“You know son, we can’t avoid making mistakes. We can’t avoid hurting each other. Even when we are trying to do the right thing we end up hurting each other. For the rest of your life you’re going to find out about how you did this, that or the other thing and how, even though your intentions were the best, you ended up hurting someone. Hurting people is inevitable. That’s no excuse for hurting people. But it’s inevitable.
But what you can do is this. Mending. You can always mend. You can always apologize. You can always try to fix things. To knit and stitch back together what has been ripped. Mending is the secret of life.”
I am taken by this notion that “Mending is the secret of life.” Mending is certainly appropriate for anyone who struggles with selfishness, insensitivity, or rude talk. Mending is also the only hope for anyone who struggles with sin, which last time I checked includes all of us. No wonder the playwright Eugene O’Neill once observed, “We are born broken. We live by mending. The grace of God is the glue.”
Love is simply the art of mending. With this in mind, may we love one another well.
Recent Comments