Seemingly Inconsequential

I’m sitting on my patio with a cinnamon stick in my shoe and another in the buttonhole of my shirt.

In fact, I did this yesterday as well and then unaware of the one in my buttonhole, wore it for the rest of the day.

New fashion trend you might ask?

No, new mosquito repellent.

The mosquitos have been especially bad these past few days.

I expect it in the evening but now there is no time of the day that they aren’t active.

Yesterday morning when walking the dog, a mosquito landed and bam, I got it before it got me.

As I sit here, I see a very small insignificant bug buzzing a few feet away from me.

And I wonder how does something so small cause such a skin reaction.

I can get a seemingly small bite one day, and by the next day it’s red and raised and grown a size and half! 

And the itching, oh the itching is so very disturbing.

I can try to ignore it, but it doesn’t alter the fact that it’s still festering and pestering me.

Which reminds me of another seemingly inconsequential thing that gets under our skin, specifically words.

Just a few days ago a coworker in an effort to defend another coworker lashed out in an e-mail that caused another coworker to lash back.  Being on the e-mail chain I was privy to it all and yes it was offensive to all of us.

Mind you the coworker who was initially being defended didn’t ask for any such thing.

Why do we take it upon ourselves to do these things that no one is asking us to do but which snowball into misinterpretations and disagreements?

When I was a kid we had a saying, “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”

What was that all about?

Of course, words can hurt you!

But that was our default to say your words don’t matter, I can ignore them.

We can try to ignore them, but we can’t really forget them.

And there lies the problem.

These words, small as they are, bug us. 

And the more we think about the words, the more we rehearse the words, and allow them to grow into something more.

It’s like that mosquito bite.

Small at first, then gradually growing bigger, and becoming more and more of an annoyance until we just want to scratch the darn thing!

Often, I’ve scratched around an insect bite because it provides a little relief, but I leave the actual bite alone.  This never helps. It only seems to inflame the skin around it and make the bite itch even more.

With words, it’s the same.  We want to say something. Sometimes we beat around the bush about it at first and then bam, we let them have it!

So there lies the dilemma of the snowball effect, but what is the solution?

If we know ignoring the words doesn’t work let’s try something else.

Ask a question.

When someone says something that is hurtful, rather than to become defensive, ask them a question.

“Why did you say that?” 

 “Why did you do that?”

“Why do you think that?”

“What do you mean?”

I think if we asked people questions rather than just stating our own opinion or retaliating, we might just learn something about those folks and a little something about ourselves as well.

But when we question we must be willing to listen to the answer even if we don’t agree with it.

Oh, and if you’re coming to my house next weekend, don’t worry, I’ve got cinnamon sticks!

Philippians 2:3-4 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.