The Boomerang

                                                                                                                                                         Criticism is a sport at which my husband excels, but which I cannot abide.  So much so that for Lent he

offered to give up being critical...around me.  He knows how much I dislike criticism.  It upsets me no end, and makes me loooooong for an internet-free world, and a talk radio-free world, and a pundit-free world. It makes me long for heaven, and believe me, I thought I'd died and gone there when he told me what he planned to do for Forty.  Glorious.  Days.

But for John, offering his critical insights on everything from...well, on everything is as much fun as a game of table hockey.  So, you'll notice, he clearly reserved the option to cut loose whenever I'm not around.  That's fine with me.  As C.S. Lewis once said, "a heaven for mosquitoes and a hell for men could very conveniently be combined."  So let the mosquitoes gather where they will (probably at the local cigar lounge), just as long as I'm not there!

It's not that I believe all criticism is bad.  Constructive criticism can be highly useful--maybe even lifesaving--feedback to help me improve myself.  Almost daily I seek this kind of criticism from the Bible. "For the Word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword.  It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow.  It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."  (Heb. 4:12)  Inviting that kind of criticism into my life leaves me feeling clean, albeit a tad uncomfortable with myself from time to time.  It's refreshing, renewing, and hopeful, offering solutions.

But when criticism is unedited, unfiltered and un-reflective, it is just the opposite.   It's like a jab in the eye with a sharp stick.  And in my opinion, that stick is quite often the plank jutting out of the eye of the one offering the criticism.  It leaves me feeling defensive, hurt and angry.  It leads me to joust with my own barb, fulfilling the words of Jesus: "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults--unless, of course, you want the same treatment.  That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging."  (Matt 7:5, the Message)

I'd rather let mercy boomerang, wouldn't you?   Because what goes around comes around.

Pax et Bonum,
Rose