I really hate being told I'm wrong

Yesterday I posted a video on Facebook of a young woman interviewing people on the Western Carolina University Campus about a controversial amendment we have coming up in NC this May. What we'll be saying Yes or No to in North Carolina is this:

“Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.”

The young woman doing the interviewing at Western is part of a group trying to raise consciousness about what a huge impact this vote will have. 

She's also very passionately opposed to the ammendment and hopes to get lots of folks to vote against it.  I'll certainly be voting against it. 

Later in the day a Christian friend I haven't seen in 3 decades, somebody I've recently become Facebook friends with, sent me a very strongly worded, rebuking kind of message. One of the scripture quotes in it was, "Woe to those who call good evil and evil good."

Funny, the sermon I preached yesterday was about how hard it is to let go of BEING RIGHT. 

I really like to be right.

I really don't like not being right.

I really hate being told I'm wrong. 

So...getting this message from an old friend gave me a wonderful opportunity to practice, yet again, what I preach. 

And I don't mean I think this means I'm wrong in what I believe. It's just that mature spirituality offers wiser ways to relate to the whole concept of RIGHT & WRONG.

I quoted Yehuda Amichai's poem in yesterday's sermon:

    From the place where we are right
    Flowers will never grow
    In the spring.

    The place where we are right
    Is hard and trampled
    Like a yard.

    But doubts and loves
    Dig up the world
    Like a mole, a plow.
    And a whisper will be heard in the place
    Where the ruined
    House once stood.

Great wisdom in this poem. Especially for those of us with strong attachments to being right. 

Reading the Facebook message from my old friend was a great time to practice The Sacred Pause. 

I was so riled up. Three or four possible responses popped into to my head. Fueling every one of them was that  potent mix of anger and pride and self-righteousness that drives so many unhelpful 'discussions.'

Sensing those strong feelings--anger and pride and self-righteousness in myself--reminded me to simply pause. To just be with what I was thinking and feeling. To try to view it all and feel it all without acting on any of it...YET. 

To tell the truth it was kind of a messy process. The phrase "stewing in his own juices" comes to mind. 

Eventually, however, the heat under us and in us always gets turned down. Not even a simmer left. 

And we find two really good results have come. One is that we've been able to see and smell and taste almost everything that's been stewing (nothing much edible or edifying!). The other is we haven't jumped to a hasty action. 

A seeker once asked a sage, "What is the wisdom of a lifetime?" The teacher answered, "An appropriate response."

Pausing is the practice that allows space for an Appropriate Response to be sought, awaited, recognized, considered, and embodied. 

Life's too short to cook up and serve self-righteousness. Especially when your deepest desire is to cook up and serve something so much richer.