Nice People

Enough whining about me. Let's whine about something else!

Just kidding. While this is fire-related and me-related, it isn't actually whining. Just time for observation.

People have been so nice. (And I'm thankful, trust me.) Not just everyday polite, but nice. It's as if everyone thinks before they react to me. There's a little mental neon sign somewhere in their head that says, "Don't respond like usual. This person deserves a little TLC right now." This attitude is most apparent at work, because it's hard to tell at church where everyone's already expected to be all lovey-dovey, and especially at a new church when you're still meeting people for the first time and they all want to make a good impression.

Now, please don't get me wrong. I work with really great people. But it's a job. We work together 40+ hours a week. We can rub each other the wrong way. Our priorities and personalities differ and there's plenty of drama from day-to-day. So we get irritated when someone interrupts a project or asks too many questions or disagrees with the way we want to do something. It's human nature.

But somehow, human nature is put on hold when there's a problem in someone's life. This is where it comes to me, not because I happen to be the one with the "tragedy" right now, but because I'm guilty of this behavior, too. Maybe more than anyone else.

B's brother died of cancer last year, so I was extra-considerate and accommodating if she needed anything from me. Speaking of cancer, J just successfully defeated breast cancer. Yay for her, and I made sure to help her with some of her projects while she was here at work during that difficult time (we normally don't cross paths). D just got through a major surgery and we're all concerned about how he's doing. I'm sure when he returns to work we'll do everything we can to make things easier on him. For a while at least.

I'm noticing the same consideration for me. The witty people are still witty, just not so bitingly at my expense. People are more patient, more willing to get what I need when I need it. There's a flexibility with me needing to cut into work time for personal things that normally wouldn't exist if it was a more mundane situation.

This is grace, I suppose, in all the little ways we don't usually afford it to each other. And it's not that I'm finding fault with the way people typically treat me. Not at all. It just has me wondering why something negative needs to happen personally to someone for us to give each other this grace. It doesn't seem to cause any extra stress. In fact, this mutual understanding people around a "tragic figure" have about treating that figure appears to unify them and change the atmosphere. It breaks into our normal behaviors and softens us, allowing us to show a tender side in a place where tender often means weak.

So this is both a wonderful thing that's happening around me - this proven capability to emerge from relational stupor to grace - and it's also a little sad. Because at some point, the crisis will be over and it will be back to "business as usual" until the next problem. God, please let me learn this lesson, to always treat others with the patience and kindness you've called me to, and not with the less graceful attitude I often choose.