A Word That's Soft and Gentle

for the past week, one of my wife's female relatives has been staying with my wife's sister and her husband.  this relative is older than my wife and her sister.  her life, to hear her tell it, has been a series of misfortunes, from her childhood growing up with an abusive father to her present situation with her terminally ill husband, who treats her abominably.  she has moved into a new home, which she helped select, and hates it because it is too small and lacks many of the amenities she would like to have.  she moved from a lovely home, which was custom built to her specifications, which she hated because of its location.  her daughter, an only child, talks her into decisions that are ostensibly for the best but which appear to be intended to enhance the value of the daughter's inheritance when her mother passes away.  when we are with her, all is doom and gloom.  life holds no joy for her and never has.  she has no friends, because no one is perfect enough for her.  those who try to befriend her are pushed away by her constant complaints and criticisms.

my wife and i feel sorry for her and wish that we could help her.  we know that any attempts to help will be rebuffed and that she will assign some selfish motive to our compassion.  when we try to carry on a conversation with her, our comments are cut short by an angry reply or seen as an opportunity for her to complain about her plight.  we can only wish her a happier life and refuse to allow her negativity to stop us from caring for her.  we've come to understand that her constant complaining and belittling of others is her way of coping with life and that she finds a certain joy in seeing her misfortunes, many caused by her own choices, as her lot.  she sees life as a card game, in which those around her always have the best hands, while she is the eternal loser.

we've all known people like this, people who walk around with a cloud over their heads, like the character in the old "li'l abner" comic strip.  such folks seem to enjoy the pain caused as they wound themselves over and over with the same arrows.  not content to suffer once because of an injury, they inflict the suffering over and over as they recount their "bad luck" repeatedly.  like my relative by marriage, they dwell on childhood traumas and fill themselves with hatred for those who caused those traumas.  they would rather complain about problems over and over than find solutions for them.

may we refuse to let the bitterness and anger of others cause us to feel bitter and angry.  may we summon up as much compassion as we can for those who delight in suffering and in complaining to us about their suffering.  may we see the harm we do to ourselves when we wound ourselves repeatedly with the same arrow.  may we not wallow in our own misery, pushing others away as we do so.  may we find joy in life rather than dwelling on the things that don't work out as we might wish.  shalom.