"When you deal with your brother, be pleasant, but get a witness." -- Hesiod, Works and Days
Nearly two decades ago, I decided that I was done with anger. I mean it. I was overtopped with injustice, as I saw it.
The occasion was a girlfriend going out on a date with a new guy while I was in fury. I could not sleep for rage, could not think. I was blistering under the heat of my own indignation and righteousness, and then a thought occurred to me. I thought, as every man in my situation (or woman, probably), that as I suffered, she was laughing and enjoying herself and having great sex, and my misery was farthest from her mind. Like everyone before me and since, that sent my rage up a notch, and then. . . it led me to quit.
What I was feeling was not hurting her. All that I could dream up, all that I could plan, all that I could wish, was doing absolutely nothing to her, but it was killing me. I was the one who was getting ill, hastening to my grave, and ruining my work. I was suffering for her bad actions, and I was the one doing it.
That was it. I decided from then on that I wasn't going to get like that again. It didn't do anything, after all. Why would I want to do my enemies a favor and hurt myself?
I can't control what the other person thinks of me. I can do my part to be less offensive, but only to a certain point. It's not enough to mean no harm, after all; we should give no harm, too. If someone else is offended and it's unjustified, it's still best to apologize. After all, what does it cost? The principle of rightness demands otherwise? Really? Am I so sure that I know all the facts? Aren't I wrong about forty percent of the time?
I find myself in an odd place now -- one I have avoided and would avoid with all my heart again. I find that I am supposed to be fighting, that I am supposed to have fought, imagined to have made strategies of battle, and all I want to do is give way.
"Bibliomancy" is the term given for the practice of "Bible roulette" -- where a person flips randomly in a Bible while meditating upon a question and regards whatever he or she lands on as an answer. Officially, no one recommends it, but, unofficially, every Christian I've met does it, including me. I'll make no claims to convince my readers, as convincing is impossible, but two days ago I landed on Acts 5. I was a bit aggravated. I don't enjoy reading Acts much, and the story in Acts 5 is difficult. Bear with me as I quote it.
But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, "Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land? While it remained, wasn't it yours? and after it was sold, wasn't the money in your control? why have you conceived this thing in your heart? you have not lied to men, but to God." And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up his life: and great fear came on all those who heard these things. Acts 5:1-5
Heaven help me, but when I came to that, I thought like an academic. I thought, "Interesting. There is something about Peter's language to look at here, because of the distinction he's making on duty vs. offering." I missed entirely that the passage was covering one of the most hurtful things we encounter: someone stealing a gift.
Forget the early Church's socialism for a moment and look at Peter's shock. He says, essentially, "You could have kept the land -- it was yours. You could have kept the money, too -- that was yours. But trying to cheat, trying to 'beat the system' by claiming to give and holding it back? That's not to be forgiven." He's right, too. The crime was the attempt to "win" by taking back something that was supposed to be a gift and, in the process, desecrating, literally, the gift. Ananais was turning a gift into a tax.
I don't believe in money, myself. However, I can't persuade others to share my position, and so I don't press it. Instead, I really believe in sharing as much as possible, taking as little as possible. I'm also a big believer in the value of small things. Therefore, when our offices were in a condemned building once (for a few years), I went out and bought inexpensive soap dispensers and scented soap. I figured that I would donate these, and it would cheer us up. Before I could, though, one of my colleagues saw and took them. He literally stole a gift I was giving.
At Wikipedia, I wrote articles. I would research them in books rather than websites, and I would cite the books using parenthetical citation. I would also use my generally wide knowledge to present readers with a synthesis of opinions on a subject and break out the points of view. Over time, we began to have people demanding footnotes instead of parenthetical citations. They then began "revising" articles by removing the parenthetical citations and reporting them as being without citation. We had people demanding web references or substituting web references for print references (and the web references frequently got their information from the older Wikipedia article). By the time I left, I felt, again, that it had become impossible to give for all the clamor of voices wanting to be my boss. No one can volunteer for a boss.
It is hard to explain how cutting it is. One's act of generosity is not merely denied, but it is made into subordination.
Now, in the miseries of estate settlement, I find that people are armed for war. They assume that I am as well, that I had been, that studied insults are the coin of the realm. I cannot live if that is life. It does nobody any good. I will not be angry, even if I cannot flee.