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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Needed: Kind Conversation


Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, nor quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not gloat over other men’s sins, but delights in the truth. There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 New English Translation, 1961. Emphasis mine).


In yesterday’s blog I mentioned a New Testament Bible that my father gave me in 1961. It is the New English Translation of that year. I am struck by the above passage, especially the words which I have emphasized in bold. 

Gloat defined: to observe or think about something with triumphant and often malicious satisfaction, gratification, or delight (gloat over an enemy's misfortune) [Merriam-Webster]. 

It seems to me that a midcourse correction is way overdue. We have traveled a long ways down the road upon which a fetish is made of other people’s misfortune evidenced by endless trash-talk chatter in the media or, sad to say, by ourselves when we slam others at work or even in our homes. There is no better or self-revealing term regarding this than gloating over. It lays bare our eager meanness, excited delight, and unrelieved hatred when we trash others and coincidentally show our own highly starched self-righteousness. Let us like Joshua begin at home. Let us pledge that for me and my house a sweet spirit of kindness, hope, and generosity will prevail—the writhing stew of cynicism and darkness that characterizes the outside world will be banned. I may not be able to control the climate everywhere, but I can control the tone and tenor under the roof of my own house. Then I will be able to affirm that trash talk filled with self-aggrandizement and cynicism are strangers here: here; belief, faith and charity reside.







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