A few weeks ago our door bell rang, and then quickly rang again. Reacting to the insistence, my wife and I both bolted toward the door from different spots, with her getting there first. From the top of the stairway I could hear her having a somewhat heated conversation, with the heat coming from a voice I didn’t recognize. The conversation soon ended, and my wife came upstairs to decompress.
I discovered our mail carrier was not happy with our front yard landscaping. She was specifically miffed by an offending plant that was blocking her shortcut to the house next door. Mind you this recently planted plant was about the size of a fist. But to her it was a major blockade, and there was no way she was going to “waste her time” going back down the walkway.
Beyond the injustice perpetrated, we were also putting her on the horns of a dilemma. Would we make her do an injustice to the plant by stepping on it or an injustice to herself by retracing her steps? We were cruelly putting her in a no win situation and she less than subtly indicated our mail service might suffer unless something was done.
I reacted objectively as always: “Are you friggin’ kidding me?” You’re telling me she wants us to re-plant our mini-landscaping so she can shorten her shortcut? We’d never even seen her deliver our mail much less know the nuances of the route she took. Is the term “disgruntled postal worker” an oxymoron or what? Isn’t this sense of entitlement the reason the Postal service is losing money?
I’ve had it! This is beyond the pale, even in PCeattle! I’m going to call up her supervisor and cancel our mail service! That’ll fix her!!!!
And us of course. She gets one less house to deliver mail to and we get bupkis. Sensing I was going a bit inane, I decided to take the road less traveled, actually sitting back for a second and trying to get perspective. OK, maybe our house does have quite a few steps which are a hassle to get up and down. Maybe she was having a bad day. Maybe she was sick and tired of schlepping all that mail in all that rain with all that flora in her way.
And more than maybe, I needed to take a look at myself. Did I want to be the type of person that goes ballistic at every slight that comes my way? The type of person who see everything in us vs. them terms, with them the instigators and me (us) the victim? Someone who walks around pissed off at life and looks for reasons to stay that way?
A part of me does, yes. But a larger and deeper part of me wants to do the right thing for the right reasons, the part I’m most trying to cultivate. To this end I’ve been memorizing biblical passages recently, including Colossians 3:12, which says to “clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” How should I act in this situation with these virtues in mind?
The next day I was still stewing on all these subtleties when I heard the clank of someone dropping mail in our box. It was her! Without thinking I bolted out the door and.....actually loved on her! I said I was sorry for the inconvenience and sincerely asked what we might move in the future to make things easier for her. Her countenance seemed to soften as I did so, and she said thanks for caring about her concerns.
Was this the right thing to do? Ninety percent of me thought so, with the other ten percent thinking I’d overreacted, glossing over the challenges presented. But mostly it felt good to love this person. I know the clothes of compassion and kindness often don’t fit me, but at least I’m trying them on.
I discovered our mail carrier was not happy with our front yard landscaping. She was specifically miffed by an offending plant that was blocking her shortcut to the house next door. Mind you this recently planted plant was about the size of a fist. But to her it was a major blockade, and there was no way she was going to “waste her time” going back down the walkway.
Beyond the injustice perpetrated, we were also putting her on the horns of a dilemma. Would we make her do an injustice to the plant by stepping on it or an injustice to herself by retracing her steps? We were cruelly putting her in a no win situation and she less than subtly indicated our mail service might suffer unless something was done.
I reacted objectively as always: “Are you friggin’ kidding me?” You’re telling me she wants us to re-plant our mini-landscaping so she can shorten her shortcut? We’d never even seen her deliver our mail much less know the nuances of the route she took. Is the term “disgruntled postal worker” an oxymoron or what? Isn’t this sense of entitlement the reason the Postal service is losing money?
I’ve had it! This is beyond the pale, even in PCeattle! I’m going to call up her supervisor and cancel our mail service! That’ll fix her!!!!
And us of course. She gets one less house to deliver mail to and we get bupkis. Sensing I was going a bit inane, I decided to take the road less traveled, actually sitting back for a second and trying to get perspective. OK, maybe our house does have quite a few steps which are a hassle to get up and down. Maybe she was having a bad day. Maybe she was sick and tired of schlepping all that mail in all that rain with all that flora in her way.
And more than maybe, I needed to take a look at myself. Did I want to be the type of person that goes ballistic at every slight that comes my way? The type of person who see everything in us vs. them terms, with them the instigators and me (us) the victim? Someone who walks around pissed off at life and looks for reasons to stay that way?
A part of me does, yes. But a larger and deeper part of me wants to do the right thing for the right reasons, the part I’m most trying to cultivate. To this end I’ve been memorizing biblical passages recently, including Colossians 3:12, which says to “clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” How should I act in this situation with these virtues in mind?
The next day I was still stewing on all these subtleties when I heard the clank of someone dropping mail in our box. It was her! Without thinking I bolted out the door and.....actually loved on her! I said I was sorry for the inconvenience and sincerely asked what we might move in the future to make things easier for her. Her countenance seemed to soften as I did so, and she said thanks for caring about her concerns.
Was this the right thing to do? Ninety percent of me thought so, with the other ten percent thinking I’d overreacted, glossing over the challenges presented. But mostly it felt good to love this person. I know the clothes of compassion and kindness often don’t fit me, but at least I’m trying them on.
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