It's All Your Fault!

My (very) small group is reading former First Pres senior pastor Mark Labberton's new book, The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor: Seeing Others Through the Eyes of Jesus. 

I'm particularly struck by Labberton's writing about blame.  He writes about how it creates separation between us; how before the Fall, Adam looks at Eve and praises God: "This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh."  But after the Fall, he can't even look at her.  She's just "the woman whom you gave to be with me."

From "flesh of my flesh" to "the woman you gave?" Ouch.

I do this all the time.  The minute something goes wrong, my mind jumps to blaming someone, often irrationally.  If Liv is having a tantrum, my first thought is that my husband has created this behavior by giving in to her too many times.  If there's a bag of recycling blocking the laundry room door, my first thought is that my mom recycles too much whenever she visits.   I mean, used paper towels?  Do those really need to be recycled?

"Husband" goes from "beloved partner and rock" to "that guy who's always undermining my best efforts at parenting." 

"Mom" goes from "lifegiver/nurturer" to "inconvenience."

And me?  I'm always blameless!

Just the simple act of noticing how I talk to myself about the people around me when things don't go my way has woken me up to this habit.  Now, when my mind starts snarling, I can pull back and laugh at it a little...if I'm lucky, maybe even till the tide changes and things start going my way again.