Letter writer Frederick Bedell, counseling us this week on the “Rule of the garbage can,” speaks very directly to me — and to many other readers, I’m sure — about our need to be charitable and forgiving when we feel we have been treated rudely or worse.
As Mr. Bedell reminds us, we often have no idea what is going on in the lives of people who direct their hostility at us, or whom we feel have wronged us.
When I was in my teens, my dad was suffering with a damaged heart valve that within three years would end his life. Normal activities, like walking any distance, would cause him severe chest pains and shortness of breath. So he was pleased one night, stopping at a local department store on his way home from work, to find a parking space right near the door. As he got out of his car, however, he was accosted by a woman — with her young daughter in tow — screaming and cursing at him that he had “stolen” her parking space. “You’re some gentleman,” she shouted — words that truly stung a man who was always courteous and respectful of women, and who, even when suffering with a serious heart problem, would never have jumped into that parking space had he realized that a woman with a young child was waiting to take it.
But she, obviously, had no idea what he was going through; that he had a heart condition that made that parking space, while a convenience for her, vital to his health. Naturally, when he recounted this incident to us later at home, we were all quite angry at this woman for her verbal abuse of our dad, and for — unknowingly, on her part — putting his health in further jeopardy by subjecting him to such stress.
Years later, I’m also able to reflect on the fact that we had no idea what was going on in her life at the time. She could have been dealing with any number of personal issues or sufferings that might have caused her to be so hateful toward a complete stranger. That doesn’t excuse her behavior, but it does help us to keep it in perspective; to not take it personally, as Mr. Bedell urges; and to have offered a prayer rather than succumb to the same kind of anger which she had indulged.
Another incident that comes to mind occurred about 10 years ago, when I was working in Manhattan and riding the subway. As we came to a particularly abrupt stop one evening, I reflexively wrapped my arm around a pole — an absolute no-no during rush hour, when one should grip the pole with only one hand so as to leave room for other standees to also hang on for dear life. A woman entering the car let me know of my breach of subway etiquette (now there’s an oxymoron) by ramming her body hard against my arm.
“All you had to do was say ‘excuse me,’” I told her. That only served to provoke her to a spew of expletives. I said nothing more, but my anger was rising and my thoughts toward her were anything but Christian. Yet in retrospect, this was another situation where I had no idea what was going on in her life: what her day was like at work, what kind of family life, if any, she was going home to, the condition of her health, or any of a myriad of other considerations that might have made her such an apparently bitter person. Maybe it was just the daily ordeal of riding the subway — “the Aberdeen Proving Grounds for aggravation,” as Ralph Kramden so presciently observed.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that we are obliged to act as receptacles for everyone else’s garbage, to use Mr. Bedell’s metaphor. When we silently allow someone to verbally (or physically) trash us, we can become enablers who thus encourage their abusiveness not only toward us, but toward others they encounter as well. It was certainly acceptable, I think, for me to tell the woman that there was a more polite way for her to ask me to move my arm.
Beyond that, however, what I needed to do was swallow my anger — and my pride — say a prayer for her, and move on, conscious that I, too, have certainly on occasions overreacted in anger to some perceived minor transgression.
What we should not do is let the bitterness of others poison us; taking their garbage and spreading it to others as Mr. Bedell warned, or even allowing it to spread within ourselves, making us angry and bitter in turn.
We are called to be Christ to others. For me, that is so much easier when I can remind myself that, as in the case of my dad, a perceived wrong may be a totally innocent act with no malice intended; or that, as in the case of the woman on the subway, or the woman who berated my dad, their bitterness may be related to things in their lives that merit our compassion and prayers, not our anger. And that there, but for the grace of God, go I.