|
|
Giving Up Griping
Wednesday March 15, 2006
After the column I wrote two weeks ago,
about giving up things for Lent, friend Bob Scott sent me a column that Rita
Smith had written for the Globe and Mail's Facts and Arguments page.
Rita also remembered giving up things for Lent. Her family took it very
seriously. Until the day a boyfriend came home for supper. “And what are you
giving up for Lent?” her family asked him.
"Getting hit by buses," he replied without hesitation, "and getting
eaten by sharks. There will be none of that this year, I tell you," he added for
emphasis. "None!"
That irreverent response changed Rita's attitude. She started giving up
other kinds of things.
“A few years ago,” she wrote, “I gave up grumbling, griping, and whining
of any kind. I made the public commitment on Ash Wednesday, and proceeded to
spend the next six weeks studiously resisting the urge to join negative
conversations and whining sessions…
“Over those weeks I was involved in a number of very complicated,
contentious, stressful meetings. All progress ground to a halt as meetings
disintegrated into whining sessions.
“'I'm very sorry,' I was forced to apologize on several occasions. 'I
gave up grumbling, griping, and whining of any kind for Lent. I'd love to join
you in this conversation, but I'm afraid it's against my religion.'”
Without exception, she reported, meetings quickly got back to productive
business: “Who could go on griping and whining when it violated someone's
sancrosanct religious belief?”
Changing perceptions
As Thich Nhat Hanh, a
Vietnamese Buddhist priest, wrote in his book The Heart of Buddha's Teaching,
"We are what we perceive."
In other words, if we wear rose-colored glasses, that is our reality. If
we expect a dog-eat-dog competition, that too is our reality.
Some reality is external, of course. No amount of positive thinking can
make an earthquake or a mudslide disappear. But the significance of most life
situations comes not from outside but from inside. To change my reality, Thich
Nhat Hanh teaches, I must first change my perception of it.
Many hold their present reality so tightly they dare not let it go.
They're afraid if they let go of their present practices, there may be nothing
to take its place. They remain locked into negativity because that is all they
feel they have.
Better what an unknown correspondent once told me: “I am a work in
progress.”
Lent could be just a beginning. Rita Smith wrote: “I not only now give
up grumbling, griping and whining of any kind every Lent, but I frequently
re-state my commitment at the start of every big initiative. I put a 'loonie
jar' on the table and ask staff to hold me accountable by making me put a dollar
in the jar every time I engage in any negative talk or whining.”
So do something constructive for Lent. Join Rita Smith. Give up
something that will make a difference to everyone around you.
Copyright © by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study
groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
To send comments on this column, email
Jim Taylor
directly. You can also receive Jim's column by email. Contact him at
jimt@quixotic.ca
|
