I Love You Hater

December 14, 2010

I Love You Hater

Yesterday I posted on my facebook wall this little snippet:

The hardest lesoon I've ever learned: it's okay that people don't like me.

First of all, oops about lesoon. I was typing on my phone and...oh whatever...does anyone want my excuses for Christmas? I am giving them away with a big red bow...?

(I meant lesson.)

I had just heard yet another disparaging piece of dirty commentary someone had about my life and you know, I was about to let it torment me until dinnertime, but then I remembered that I had already learned this lesson (or lesoon, in facebook speak).

But what is with people who attack women who have ideas? Even if you don't like those ideas? Let's encourage each other to have ideas! Ideas are great!

So anyway, there were some interesting comments in response to my misspelled status update:

-Working as a minister, I had to unfortunately figure that one out the hard way.

-Another useful one:  it doesn't matter if people think I'm selfish/cheap/lazy as long as *I* don't think so.

-Words of wisdom 25 years ago in nursing school  from the 40-year-veteran RN professor: "A third of your patients will  really like you. A third may or may not like you. The other third won't  like you. And that's okay."

-It's tricky isn't it? I'm just realizing that no  matter who, what, where or why, who I am and most importantly who I was  will never change. 

-Well, if you were just nicer...like Lucy.

(That last one came from my friend Sue, who knows me very well...and Lucy not so well. Except they are neighbors, and okay...Lucy is nice.)

Along with fifty or so other comments, I enjoyed reading what others had to say about the matter. The matter being, sometimes people don't like you. Sometimes they hate you. And people who hate me the most are people I've never met. Which makes things even more complicated, because don't you want to believe that if people met you they wouldn't hate you? Maybe they wouldn't come to a place of worship about you, but at least they would release the idea that you are something Satan enjoys?

Anyway, before I went to bed last night I was thinking about this and other stuff and I started to wonder about being the object of another person's hate. Do you suppose that sometimes being the human that absorbs dislike and disgruntlement is in a way an act of service? (I mean, as long as it's not violent of course.) If you can take the heat without giving it back, without letting it consume yourself, without hating the hater, do you suppose it really is the greatest gift we can give someone?

Because what's going to happen when they realize that they've been loved all along by the one person who took all of their negative junk and turned it into a gift of forgiveness?

I think, wow.

-Wait, I thought you wrote "lesson", but you wrote "lesoon".
Which makes me think that maybe you're talking about playing a musical instrument related to the bassoon.
And that maybe
"it's okay that people don't like me"
is really a song.
...A really hard song.
If that's the case, Keep on practicing! You'll get there!

*image above is the aftermath of The Chief's laptop remodel. Sometimes I wonder if my own son hates me...

Are you Jamie?