Action and Reaction

I noticed a peculiar pattern in how I view the way I communicate with people.

For me, it's more like "the reaction is up to the other person" not "my action automatically will cause a reaction in another person, so I should walk on eggshells". A friend of mine once had an argument with me about this issue; I believe that, for example, if someone punched me in the face, I have every right to be angry about it and that there is nothing wrong with it.

My friend proceeded to argue that actually I had a choice whether to be angry or not. And that, ultimately, I should choose not to be angry that somebody hit me, because my religion dictates that I deal with people with grace and love, not anger and hate. I told him that it's pretty hard to make the choice not to be angry right then and there. He told me that when somebody does something to you, the "ball is in your court, and you have to choose what you're going to do with it, regardless of what the other person has done." I may have a right to choose to be angry, but should I allow myself to be such in light of what I believe?

But instead of applying this good lesson to myself, I applied it to all Christians and expected them to react with love and grace even though I do not. Hence me telling people the truth without love. It's the lazy way out. When I wrote a letter to my dad about my beliefs, I spent days on it and had people read it to see if it would be provoking in a bad way. I never do such things when communicating with Christian brothers and sisters.

So in other words, I've been punching people in the face and expecting them to smile about it and give me a pat on the shoulder. It's actually a pretty funny image, but the fact that I'm actually doing that figuratively is not a good thing. There may come a point where someone I communicate to in this poor way may not be able to handle what I say gracefully.

Ah. I just thought of something. I realized that I only "say" dumb, angry, hurtful things when I write. My Dad did a great job of conditioning what I say to people, and that isn't too much of a problem for me. But I never conditioned myself how to write, and therefore I never did control myself in quite the same way as a writer. Looking back now, a lot of my essays of argumentation came laden with warnings from my instructors about using demeaning language meant to personally attack the other person/idea instead of focusing on the point. The way I write was distracting people from the main point of the essay.

Well, at least I'm getting somewhere.