In living a long life, one is impressed during twilight years about the excessive accents many persons place on rather unimportant factors in life. We challenge children for sibling rivalry, for pouting, for fits of emotion over possessiveness. These ought to be corrected in a care-teaching atmosphere, cultivating maturity in a life. They must be treated before they are developed into life-long features of plain foolishness, becoming hurtful. I have counseled many couples about to break up over trivialities. I wonder if for them respect and maturity will ever gain rightful place. Aggravations are blamed on in-laws; on clumsiness in doing this or that; and, on circumstances beyond one’s control. In fact there is a degree of arrogance that fault lies somewhere other than in themselves – in some way. We ought to be able to have an attitude for solutions. God certainly has this generosity in maintaining his interest in the great human range of habits and thoughts.
The issue has become so large that even the society is distracted in the therapeutic culture. That society makes everything, even slight discomfort, into a problem requiring major attention for correction. Doctors and counselors are faced with a bag full of irritations from clients (some would say patients) that should be left to the flexing of nature and the human race. For some persons these matters are made major in meaningless chatter. Families are tuned to the possibility of offense so become sensitive to this or that tone of voice, to a slight or presumed slight. They see personal preferences as necessary rather than preferred. There are persons that I could not help, because they are convinced of their own feelings so to attach truth to them. These are seen in various cultures as showing the sole of one’s shoe is taken as insult, or the choice of one word rather than another is made offensive. I have noted in American culture how persons laugh at these oddities in humorous references (so they recognize the foibles), but themselves do things that offend. Many persons are offended who are guilty of similar offenses. A wife was deeply offended at the loud voice of her husband. She made it known in yelling at him, with sterner language than he would use. Harshness begets harshness. I was with a man buying flowers for a friend on her birthday. I thought the matter to be simple. My companion carried through two telephone conversations with his wife, who felt it unlikely that his choice of flowers would be satisfactory. The main intent was partly muted because some conflict arose about quality, cost, and color. Do we want to fuss about marginal factors for an upcoming joyful event? This often happens for family programming for this or that, even for weddings and funerals.
Noted in the above text, Michal and David were driven apart in their marriage by conflict over the way they would worship God. Tragically it led to total marriage break down. She, daughter of a king and now a queen, would have a regal approach to God. David was enthusiastic, a hail fellow well met, praising God with shouts and dance. Michal was angry in her offense, and David retaliated by never entering her apartment again. This may be the reason she had no child to the day of her death. The two had once been in love, enduring trying ordeals together. Now it was over, for style differences. What loss. We were not created to reserve an exclusive style. With some sadness, I have observed many Michal/David syndromes in life. But – mature persons permit differences, even large changes, without personal offense. In serious consideration the differences teach us something about ourselves and the degree of genuineness we find that we permit in our own choices for life pattern. Love in action is tolerant. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020