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I'd like to grow. Personally. Surely I am. One hopes to have grown somewhat in so many years of life. But since before and after photos of inward, personal growth are hard to come by, one must rely on an ever increasingly unreliable memory...or your critics and friends, if either camp is to be trusted.
I'd like to gossip less. (Excruciatingly transparent confession.) It's such a cheap little sin. Even the noblest of people are awfully prone to this "community vice". Seriously, it would be grand if before I said ANYTHING about ANYONE, I could ask myself, "Does this need to be said?" promptly followed by "If so, then how best to say it without collateral damage?"
Of the regrets I collect in my short term "guilt basket" are the times I spoke ill-advisedly, and often innocently, about someone- only to find that my words were, at best, repeated or, at worst, twisted and then repeated.
If the law of supply and demand applies to the words one speaks, could the value of what I say increase in inverse proportion to the number of words I speak? I think so.
A friend often intentionally misquotes the Psalm "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips." She says, "Set a grandfather clock, O Lord, before my mouth." I feel her pain.
I want to grow bigger than my insecurities. Bigger than my shortcomings. Bigger than my excuses for not being a better person and doing more of the things that really count.
Well, this certainly has turned into quite the confession booth for me. May the Lord hear my prayer.
Indeed!
My good friend who, however, gets along with everyone, sometimes tells me what is being said. We laugh about it. She even went so far as to warn one woman that if she didn’t start waving back (her husband waves as they walk by, she stonily stares ahead), I might write about her and have it published. Well, I wouldn’t do that and, in any case, it isn’t newsworthy so I doubt the paper would print it. But I’ll bet she waves back the next time.