Sunday, my son and I joined two other Villagers for a trek to Indiana to visit a sister church there. On the drive back, we stopped to get drinks, and my son and I each got a sandwich to eat on the drive home. It was well after noon, and breakfast had been much earlier that morning. When we got back in the car, the comment was made to me, rather scornfully in my opinion, "Hungry much?" In a word, yes. Duh. Obviously. But I said nothing, trying to let the comment roll off my back as I've been counseled to.
The question that this raises to me is would such a comment have been made to someone who was just riding with us? Or is there a place of comfort that allows us to say WHATEVER we like to one another at WHATEVER cost simply b/c we are "family"? I do not think the same comment would have been made to someone who does not share life, day in and day out. Which raises yet another question - is it somehow ok for us to be more harsh with one another than with others we interact with outside the home? At one point does couth and compassion make way for scornful opinion?
I'm all for speaking the truth - IN LOVE. Without love, spoken truth is meaninless. I'm sure there are those who would disagree with me on this, but lets face it - trying to convince a starving street person that Jesus alone is all he needs when his belly is empty falls painfully short of the message of compassion and love that Christ came and lived and died for. Without love, truth lacks value. Without love, truth is subjective. Without love, truth is simply another form of JUDGEMENT.
I've been discovering the very value of value in our lives over this past year. However, the worth of a person is at best compromised (and at worst, devalued) when perceived truth is spoken without the filter of love, without the compassion of Christ, and without much regard or thought as to how such words could be taken. Believing that I am "worthy to be loved" is brought into the blaring light of question when something as simple as my nutritional choices are brought into question in the way that it was.
In contemplation I've come to this conclusion - never assume malice for what ignorance can explain. Some people simply don't know any better, or simply don't think before they make statements like this. In examining the situation more, I am aware of the issues of the person who questioned me - they have a fixation on food that most people don't have, and it would seem perfectly reasonable to them to make such a statement to anyone. In sharing life with this person, I've seen this played out in many different ways, and they've been called to the carpet on it before. And so, it is with that experiential knowledge that I realize my worth remains intact, my value stable, in spite of the perception of others.
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