Here, there, and almost everywhere...

This subject keeps cropping up in almost every segment of my life! At work, at church, at home...Thank you, Nancy Wilson, for putting it into words I can quote:

Just when I think I have finally learned something, some new provocation arises to prove to me that I really haven’t gotten it at all. And that, in turn, helps to teach me my great need to bear with others since they are probably learning at the same rate I am, which means slowly. In other words, I give them plenty of opportunities to bear with me.
For example, living in community means expecting a certain amount of bumps and collisions, which requires extending forgiveness and taking it easy. A community is full of characters of all sorts, and this means there will be lots of bungling on all sides, including my side. But just knowing this is not enough. Just when I think I have this down pat, I find that I have either given offense to someone, or I am provoked by someone in an unexpected way. How I react to this demonstrates whether I really understand this community living thing or not.
If I am careless with my tongue, whether it is in complaining, over-sharing, criticizing, or thinking out loud, it is easy to justify my behavior. After all, I am fully aware that my motives were clean as a whistle. But if someone else complains, over-shares, criticizes, etc., it is not nearly so easy to justify their behavior as it was my own.
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It takes all kinds to make a world and we need to enjoy the good story material we find all around us, even if it’s the kind of story material that we can never share beyond our family members. We are a ripe bunch, and it makes far more sense to enjoy the ripeness than to get worked up over every little bump.

Ripeness... that's a nice way to put it. One step past ripe is rotten. O Lord, how I need a removal of my granite heart! "A gracious easiness" indeed!

“The critics translate the word facilis as easy. Meekness is easiness of spirit; not a sinful easiness to be debauched….nor a simple easiness to be imposed upon and deceived….but a gracious easiness to be wrought upon by that which is good, as theirs whose heart of stone is taken away and to whom a ‘heart of flesh’ is given. Meekness is easiness for it accomodates the soul to every occurrence, and so makes a man easy to himself and to all about him. ” –Matthew Henry, The Quest for Meekness and Quietness of Spirit