tightrope illusion

It feels quite suffocating to try to live life without making one mistake.

The tightrope is wide enough for our feet, but we gotta step with our utmost concentration. 

One stutter step, and we plummet.

Can't take the wrong class (or the wrong professor for the right class). Can't say the awkward thing. Can't smile too eagerly at a new face. Can't wear those shoes to this event (might not be demure, after all). Can't wave too enthusiastically at a new friend. Can't pick the wrong major. Can't shoot your shot with your crush wrongly. Can't drop a fork on the floor.

"Don't grab

Don't clutch

Don't hope for too much

Don't breathe

Don't achieve

Don't grieve without leave" -Numb

Picture this: you're babysitting your older sibling's toddler. They start to take steps and walk while holding onto the edge of a couch. But instead of a normal, encouraging response, this is what you say instead: "You just now figured this out?!? What a joke. Hey, look at me walk. It's a lot better, isn't it? Compared to me, you suck at walking."

If I could invent an unsustainable, crushing way to live, demanding perpetual self-perfection would be a part of it. 

Perfection sucks. Pursuing perfection paralyzes everything else. Let's instead aim for progress. Progress, when consistently pursued, can become excellence.

Progress advances in leaps, 

...in stutter steps, 

...in failures because we tried, 

...in inches, 

...in depth, 

...and/or in setbacks we learn from. 

Any of those advances counts as progress.

So why do we so often not notice progress even when we accomplish it? 

Maybe we're looking too closely at it, like trying to assess our own eye exam. You can either look into the phoroptor, or you can assess externally ... but you can't do both at the same time. 

It's as hard to notice our progress as it is to notice (without a mirror) when we have a tiny piece of food stuck in our front teeth.

We gotta trust the external feedback when it tells us, "yo, you got something caught up there in your chompers" and also when they say "yo, you are making progress, even though it doesn't feel like it. I can see it."

Numb (song by U2)

street barkers, fools rush in

 "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself." -Proverbs 26:4

"Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes." -Proverbs 26:5

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You overhear something ridiculously foolish. This happens all the time, right? It's just way off base. 

It's a topic you care about -- politics, urban poverty, religion, fantasy football rankings, best version of a video game franchise, identity, mayo vs Miracle Whip ... something like that. Or you doomscroll and see a comment on a friend of a friend's social media post. It stirs you up. "What a dumb thing to say," you think to yourself. Someone said something that you know is wrong. It tempts you to want to get involved and to correct. 

Do you give a rebuttal? 

Answer from the book of Proverbs: "Uh, it depends."

Here's the deal: Proverbs is a practical book for living well and godly in just about every aspect of ordinary life. So, depending on the situation, answering a fool is either the best response ... but then sometimes, not answering is the wiser option.

We have these two sayings: "Too many cooks in the kitchen" and "many hands make light work"*.

Which one of these sayings applies in a given situation? Discernment will give an idea of which route to take. It's not that they contradict -- they do not. It's that depending on the situation, either one can well apply. At one time in life, I might've engaged with street preachers to debate. Now, I usually walk past, and respectfully take a pamphlet if they offer one (if I happen to disagree with what they're saying, I will definitely take a pamphlet -- one given to me is one that can't be given to anyone else).

So, to get back to Proverbs 26:4-5. There's a difference between quarreling with a fool at their own level, which is often worthless and accomplishes nothing...

and yet, in certain context, we should certainly provide a reproof, so the fool doesn't think their assertion can't be rebutted.

What isn't addressed in these two verses:

-How can we tell who is the fool? These verses don't say or describe what the fool says or believes -- ergo, it could be you (or me) just as plausibly as it could be anyone else.

-How should we respond, if we do? These two verses are just about whether or not to respond, but not how. How to respond is aptly discussed elsewhere, and we should get into that, but for another time.

*(thanks to my sem prof and the Proverbs notes!)

say the words (please, please)

Underneath my plate of Cheetos, grapes and cheddar popcorn, my sweaty hands fidgeted while I waited for the nearest chance in five years to say -- in person -- what I'd been praying and hoping and wishing to say to an old, estranged friend: 

"I'm sorry."

Five years of attempting to apologize, to connect with someone I'd hurt. A half decade of dialing this person's phone number, and it going straight to voicemail. Five years of unacknowledged emails. Five years of silence.

At the start of those five years, I felt affronted that my estranged friend would keep me two relational time zones away. After all, we'd hung out all the time in school. We were tight! An awesome, mutually beneficial, and loyal friendship withered to nothing.

 

But I remember,  after a particularly difficult conversation with this person, pridefully ending the call and declaring to myself, "I don't plan on reaching out to him ever again."

And I didn't. 

 

And my friend never called me again. That was that. 

Pride: it will rot the heart from the inside out.

Dry rot

With time, I had a humbler, clearer understanding on the mess I'd breezily created, and then left behind. It was part of my larger life direction that needed rerouting; it took me time to realize that God wished differently for my life. I began retroactively thinking of the people I had stepped on. Then a long, arduous road of repair, recovery, resurgence, and rejoicing took place. A dear friend referred to it as "one by one, those old clouds dissipating from your life."

I had forgiving to dispense, and forgiveness to seek.

[[Related tangent: One of my most appreciated songs of the past couple years is TS' 'All You Had To Do Was Stay.'  Sure, it's an ear worm. But there's deep roots below the pop sheen veneer. 

Its lyrical core describes an estranged relationship between two people who used to be close, a long time ago. One person who'd had taken the other for granted (but now might regret it), and one person who was taken for granted (and now might know it).

The reason I appreciate this song is because -- depending on the situation -- I've been one of both people. Maybe you have too.]]

So: five years after my starting this mess, this old friend and I were both attending at a mutual acquaintance's engagement party.

In the five years of trying to right this wrong, I'd come to bump up against some unmoving, yet grace-filled, requirements of forgiveness:

 

a) an apology should be unconditional, with no strings attached--

 

b) an apology should be specific, 

 

c) there's this encouraging word about forgiveness, 

 

d) whenever possible, the size and mode of the apology should be at least match the size and mode of the offense (i.e. if I were to hurt someone with something I said out loud, apologizing out loud is what's needed. Apologizing via text message, or DM, or through a friend isn't enough).

I wanted to apologize because I knew it was what my friend rightfully deserved. It was what I owed. Time, maturity, and the Lord did much to get my head straight.

Thankfully, I looked him in the eye, apologized for what I did, the mess I willfully made, and how I had been. My friend apologized too, and we smiled, and hugged. 

 

That was that.

It was a relief to turn that heavy, heavy page.

Who's out there to whom you owe an apology? 

 

What faces, or smiles, come to your mind as you read this? 

 

If you're trying to reach out to correct a past wrong of yours, but you're being stiff-armed, keep pursuing the chance to apologize.

 

It's worth it, regardless of how they receive it.

 

We've all been there, on both sides of the apology.

"Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." -Ephesians 4:32