Don’t hold your manhoods (I mean personhoods) cheap!
I loooove conflict. I swear it’s saved my life more than once. Just yesterday I came out on the backside of a big conflict with some of my roommates. It was over something small, but the implications of the small thing were huge. My friends’ willingness to confront me helped me see things in a very different light, and it wasn’t pretty.
Why do I love conflict though? It hurts; it’s lonely; it forces us to confront things in ourselves that we would rather ignore. What’s so great about it?
Well because I’m not perfect, but I want to be (I’ll get there too). The harder the conversation, the more it hurts to confront something in myself, the bigger chunk that I’m asked to give, the closer I am to that goal. Most of the time, it’s baby steps. During conflict, it’s giant leaps.
And you? Do you need to get into a fight with someone? Are you holding anger in and not confronting people that have hurt or annoyed you?
Well, what are you waiting for?! Get after it. For your sake and theirs. I promise you, you will learn more in those painful minutes and in the (often devestating) aftermath than you will in a year of playing it safe. Even if you fall on your face, at least it will be because of a fight. At least you’ll go down in glory and honor.
Here’s how Shakespeare put it:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 8:52 am and is filed under Joe Bunting the Sinner. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on May 29, 2008 at 9:35 am cari wrote:
(from Rilke’s The Man Watching)
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it’s with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestlers’ sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively
by constantly greater beings.
on May 30, 2008 at 8:48 am admin wrote:
on May 30, 2008 at 3:44 pm Please Leave If [vol. 13]: No Host for you! | Joe Bunting wrote:
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