A Pillar of Iron

It is difficult to pass through life without experiencing some opposition or hostility. Hardly one can move through different departments of life without confronting some formidable enemies- from within and without. It is also impossible to define oneself, build a character, and cultivate an opinion without encountering some resistance. Life is an intricate web of intimate and adversarial relationships.

Prophet Jeremiah at the beginning of his mission was a fearful man. He was surrounded by inveterate enemies. The hatred and hostilities of his own people towards him was unbearable. Later in his life, he would shout “I hear many whispering words of intrigue against me. Those who would cause me terror are everywhere!” (Jer 20:10). He was terrified and horrified. He feared for his life. He was already losing heart even before he began his mission. He felt dejected and rejected.

To reassure him the Lord spoke to him. The Lord says “do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them.  And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar and bronze walls, against the whole land…They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you” (Cf. Jer 1: 17-19). Hearing these encouraging words, Jeremiah became bold and fearless. He was strengthened, energized and fortified. He was ready to face anybody and anything. Indeed Jeremiah was severely persecuted. He was beaten and humiliated; imprisoned by the king; thrown into a well by temple officials; opposed by false prophets. Through all these trials he stood firm. He stood his ground. He was unconquered and unbowed. He persevered to the end.

You may be going through a tough period in your life. Perhaps you are facing some stiff opposition from your ‘enemies’.  Your worst enemies may come from your ‘inner circles’. Opposition can arise at anytime and anywhere. The enemies that you know are less dangerous. More vicious are the enemies you do not know. The worst enemies are those who pretend to be your friends; waiting for the best opportunity to betray you or strike you. You need not be surprised at the opposition you may be facing. Jesus warns us that people will hate and persecute us on account of his name (Mk 13:11-13, Jn 15:18-25).  Your enemies can also hate you for various reasons; for stupid reasons or for no reason at all!

 You may feel threatened and you are frightened- afraid of what the enemy will do next. Do not allow fear to rule and ruin your life. Fear is a terrible thing. Fear is a like a virus that eats away everything- your strength, energy, resources, time, ambitions- everything. It can deprive you of your peace of mind, joy of living, freedom of sons and daughters of God. It can take away everything.  It can reduce you to a slave; it can reduce you to nothingness. If you succumb to fear, it can determine your decisions and life style. Then you cringe and shrink. You are bowed, cowered like cowards.

If you are afraid remember the gracious words that the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. You are a fortified city. You are impregnable and unassailable; you are unconquerable. You are a pillar of iron. You are indestructible. Nobody can bend or twist you because you are a pillar of iron purified by the Pillar of fire. You are a bronze wall. You are strong. You are impenetrable. You are fortified. When the Psalmist realized how fortified he was by Yahweh, he boldly asked: the Lord is my light and my help whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life before whom shall I shrink? (Ps 27:1)

You have the seal of the Blessed Trinity. The Lord of Hosts is with you. The God of Jacob is your stronghold. If the Lord is with you who can be against you? You are washed and covered with the Blood of the Lamb. A guardian angel with a flaming sword is assigned to you-to guard you day and night. The Lord himself is your guard.  He sleeps not nor slumbers. At your right hand He stands. By day the sun shall not smite you or the moon in the night. The Lord will guard you from evil. He will guard your soul. The Lord will guard your going and coming both now and forever (Cf. Ps 121).

Permit your fear to go away. St Theophan says “you must never be afraid, if you are troubled by a flood of thoughts, that the enemy is too strong against you, that his attacks are never ending, that the war will last for your lifetime, and that you cannot avoid incessant downfalls of all kinds. Know that our enemies, with all their wiles, are in the hands of our divine Commander, our Lord Jesus Christ, for whose honour and glory you are waging war.” In place of fear, welcome courage, confidence, and boldness. You did not receive the spirit of timid (Cf. 2Tim 1:7). He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world (Cf. 1Jn 4:4). Do not be afraid!

Dealing With Difficult People (Part 2)

DO NOT JUDGE, CRITICIZE, CONDEMN

The bible makes it crystal clear that we have no right to judge our neighbours.  Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven (Lk 6:37). There is only one law giver and judge. Who are you to judge your neighbour? (Jam 4:12).

Prophet Nathan accosted King David. The prophet told David about a rich man and a poor man. How the rich man killed the only lamb that belonged to the poor man. Kind David retorted in anger: “as the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die”! But when he realized that he was the person being referred to by the prophet he became silent. David was so eager to judge the other but very reluctant to judge or condemn himself to death (Cf. 2 Sam 12: 1-15).

We all have to minimize our criticism of others. We need to be less critical of others. Those who are hypercritical often turn out to be hypocritical. Richelle Goodrich says “there is no such thing as constructive criticism. There is constructive advice, constructive guidance, constructive counsel, encouragement, suggestion and instruction.  Criticism, however, is not constructive but a destructive means of fault-finding that cripples all parties involved”.


AVOID NAME CALLING

We may be quick to call people terrible names when they commit serious offence. The names are meant as a form of subtle insult or abuse to shame, humiliate or disgrace the offender. We may take a swipe at people; launch acerbic or vitriolic verbal attacks to embarrass or disgrace the other. Verbally humiliating others is never justified.

We believe that if we shame, disgrace an offender, this will serve as a punishment to him and as a deterrent to others. This is a twisted logic. “No one is genuinely humbled by public humiliation. No one is helped to own up mistakes by being ridiculed. No one is brought to repentance by being taunted or laughed at.” The person we humiliate may never forgive us or forget the sorrow we caused him. Mahatma Gandhi says “it has always been a mystery to me how many feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings”. We must never derive pleasure in humiliating others. When God found Adam and Eve naked He covered their shame. Let us do the same for our brothers and sisters in their moments of embarrassment. Let us cover the shame of our brothers and sisters.


DO NOT SPREAD THE FAULT OF ANOTHER

Bad news travel faster than good news. We all have the propensity to spread bad news more quickly than good news. When our neighbour does something terrible and scandalous, we are likely more eager to spread their faults abroad.   This behaviour is so pervasive and putrescent. Scandalous videos or photos become ‘viral’ in a matter of minutes. Scandalous videos are shared more rapidly on the internet than inspirational videos.

 When people do something heroic or laudable, we may just ignore them. We give it very little attention. We keep mum.
The offender still deserves his dignity and reputation. We should be reluctant to spread the faults of others. We should avoid gossip. Never destroy the reputation of others even when they have committed atrocious acts.


DO NOT DEMAND CHANGE AS A CONDITION FOR ACCEPTANCE AND LOVE

While it is perfectly right to demand positive change from our brothers and sisters, we may not demand change as a condition of love and acceptance. We may desire change in another person, but whether the person will change or not is not within our power. There are many possibilities- the person may change; he may not/never change; he may change later; he may change very slowly. If we have to wait for change before we accept, love and forgive others we may have to wait for a very long time.

Perhaps we actually need change far more than the others. We may need to change our view and attitude to other. We may need to change our attitude of aggression to compassion, gossip to prayer, criticism to advice, anger to forgiveness.


DO NOT HATE

We do not hate the offender or keep grudges against the sinner. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him (1Jn 3:15). You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him (Lev 19:17). Hatred is like a red hot charcoal we aim at somebody. But before we throw it, it will first burn our own hand.

Hatred is  self-destructive. Hatred is self-defeating. According to St Maximos, “if we detect any trace of hatred in our hearts against any man whatsoever for committing any fault, we are utterly estranged from love for God, since love for God absolutely precludes us from hating any man.” What about praying for the offender? St Chrysostom says “no one can feel hatred towards those for whom he prays”.


CONCLUSION

We all need to learn how to cope with impossible people in our lives. We need to learn how to live in peace, love, harmony, and understanding even with ‘bad’ people. We must never give the devil an opportunity to destroy many through the fault of one. The offence of others must not be an occasion of sins for us. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom 12:21). Two wrongs can never make a right. We cannot achieve the right thing by doing the wrong thing. We cannot do the right thing in the wrong way.

Dealing With Difficult People (Part1)

The existence of difficult people is one of the unpleasant facts of life. There are people around and among us we consider obnoxious, wicked and vicious. History is littered with a long list of wicked men and women, kings and queens, dictators, charlatans, generals, psychopath, terrorists who will stop at nothing to destroy others.  Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Osama bin Laden, Idi Amin, are among the notorious leaders and terrorists in history. In our society there are armed robbers, kidnappers, fraudsters, terrorists; people we will love to loathe. Perhaps we have had some unpleasant experience with a selfish neighbor or colleague and we wonder how we can cope with these ‘impossible’ people. Even in our parish community, it is not uncommon to see people with dubious character since the Church welcomes both saints and sinners. In our families we may have to put up with difficult spouse, children, siblings, relative and in-laws.

There are several passages in the Bible that affirm the existence of wicked people. In the Gospel of Matthew 13: 24-30, we have the parable of the weeds and the wheat. The farmer sows wheat. In the night the evil one sows weeds. The servants call the attention of the farmer to the growth of weeds in his farm. But the farmer discourages his servants from uprooting the weeds. The farmers says “let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn” (Matt 13: 30).  It is the will God that wheat and weed, sheep and goat, and good and evil should co-exist or live side by side. “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord, but that he turns from his way and live” (Ez 33: 11). God is not in a hurry to destroy the wicked (like the servants in the parable of the wheat and weed we wish God ‘uproots’ the wicked).

However, dealing with evil and wicked people can be a hard nut to crack. In our weakness we tend to relate with them with a lot of negativity. We are inclined to repay evil with evil. The fault of one person can become a stumbling block for many. The offense of one can become an occasion of sin for others. Responding negatively to the evil of others, we can endanger our own soul. In this short reflection, we will be discussing how not to relate with difficult people. What are the things we should NOT do in the face of evil of others?



DO NOT TO BE SCANDALIZED

We should not be scandalized, disturbed or distressed at the evil of others. We need not lose our peace of mind; lose our sleep in the face of the evils in this world. We must not be disoriented, disorganized and confused at the atrocities committed by others. In the face of horrendous evils around we ask: how can he do something like that? Why should she do something like that? And we may  be disturbed and distressed. St Francis says “let the brothers (and sisters) take care not to be disturbed or angered at the sin or the evil of others, because the devil wished to destroy many through the fault of one”. A member of a group does something despicable. Other members of the group become angry and resentful. They begin to gossip about it. They condemn and judge harshly the sinner. Inadvertently the sin of one member can lead other members to more dangerous sins like gossip, slander, resentment and malice. Indeed the devil can cause many to fall by the sin of one. It is possible for us to be calm and composed, self-possessed even in the face of terrible atrocities.


DO NOT BE ANGRY

When we are offended, our first reaction can go from disbelief to disgust to outrage. We are apoplectic with rage. We fret, fume and chafe. Anger is a natural instinct; it is human and quite normal.  In some circumstances we do not have time to decide whether to be angry or not. We are already angry. Nonetheless after the initial spontaneous reaction of anger, we should gradually permit our anger to dissolve, dissipate and fizzle away. We must never hold on to our anger, never fuel it; never allow it to brood or smolder; never allow our anger to take over our whole being; never allow anger to take away our peace of mind. If you are angry let it be without sin, the sun must not go down on your wrath. Do not give the devil a chance to work on you (Eph 4: 26-27). Even if we get angry, we should never allow our anger to lead us to sin. But if we allow our anger to linger or brood, it will ultimately lead to sin. The longer anger stays the surer it will lead to sin.  We need not allow the faults or the sins of others to constitute an occasion for our sin. Our anger is never justified. Man’s anger cannot satisfy God’s justice (Jam 1: 19-20).

But who is this Christian that is angry? Is he infallible? Is he impeccable or sinless? There are three likely possibilities:

First, we are not guilty of this particular fault. If we are not guilty of the same fault, it is not by our effort. It is only by the grace of God. It is only a proud person that will say: “I can never do that”. The ‘I’ that claims ‘it cannot do that’ is the ego or the false self. Unlike the proud, the saints are always humble. They believe that they are the worst sinners.  St Francis often says “I believe that I am the greatest of all sinners. If God had given the greatest criminal the mercy he has shown me, that man would be ten times more spiritual that I.”

Second, we are guilty of the same sin. If we are guilty of the same weakness or fault we are angry at, we become hypocrites. E.g. a parent accuses his children of stealing his money while he embezzles millions in his office. Let the one who has not sinned be the first to throw the stone (Jn 8:7). Sometimes what separates us from the persons we condemn is the fact that while our faults are hidden, their faults have become public knowledge.

Third, we may not be guilty of this particular sin but guilty of other sins this sinner is not culpable. I may not be guilty of adultery but guilty of slander. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it (Jam 2:10). If we disobey other God’s commandments what is the basis of our anger? By breaking one law we have broken the whole law.

Sometimes we attempt to correct others in anger. The correction that is heavily diluted with anger is ineffective. It can be counter- productive.  Our anger can eclipse the message we are trying to pass across. The offender cannot hear the offended because the noise of offended’s anger is too loud.  But if we are calm, composed and self-possessed, our correction will be more effective. Aristotle says “anybody can become angry that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power.”