Sometimes, when you are in the moment, you fail to recognize the gravity of it.  And sometimes…you get it.  As I was at my computer, working away the other day, I realized that my wife was receiving her very last treatment for cancer.

While I was sitting in my office.

I grabbed my keys and rushed out the door, making it to the hospital in time for her to ring the bell in celebration of this important milestone in her journey.  I was there.  In time.  And then, like the great husband I am, the kind that (sometimes) makes it in time, I took her out to coffee.  

She loves that.

And that’s the end of the great husband part of the story.

I don’t know what it is that set me off.  It wasn’t much, I can tell you that.  But sometimes this happens to me: I’m flying along, being the best version of myself, and then something catches me off guard and I go into this mode.

It is the dark cloud mode.

Suddenly, I begin emitting this negative energy.  I don’t even have to be saying anything.  I just have to sit there and…

…poison the stream.

Which I did on the very morning my wife finished fighting cancer.

And she called me out on it.  My intentions were so good, and then…

Dark cloud.

I have been trying to be more aware of this over the past year, aware that I am pouring something into the streams around me.  By my very presence, I have the capacity to help or to harm: my home, my work, my many varied relationships and connections.

Even when I don’t say or do a single thing.

When we consider our interactions with others who think differently than we do, or who are looking to push our buttons, or who are a toxin all to themselves, it is easy for us to blame them, scapegoat them, excommunicate them from our time and attention.  They’re the problem.  They’re being insensitive.  They don’t know what they’re talking about.

And sometimes that’s true.

But sometimes—most times?—we’re the ones that need to do the work.

Jesus talked about it like this, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?…first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

In other words, the first step we should take when coming into conflict with someone else is to do our own work first.

Sometimes, the “sawdust” or “plank” is made out to be “sin” in general.  Don’t try and help another with their sin until you have dealt with your own.  But in the context of this series of teachings by Jesus—and thank you Dallas Willard for this—the speck and plank is contempt.

It is being noted that our dialogue with each other—we who have very different views on politics and justice and love and goodness—has moved from anger, which can be beneficial, to contempt, which is nothing but toxic.  

Contempt is when you begin to see your brother, not as a brother, but as an other.

The impulse of contempt is to divide from, demonize, dehumanize, and invariably hate.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t say not to pay attention to what’s wrong with your brother.  No, we should address it.  But not until we have addressed the contempt, the hate, in ourselves.

Because if we don’t do this work in ourselves, we will dump our bitterness and hatred and harm all over somebody else.

And eventually on those closest to us.

Whether we open our mouths or not.

And people can tell if you’ve done your work.

Here is how Jesus names this work, “Whoever wants to be my disciple (student) must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

A cross is an instrument of death.  Jesus invites us to die to our dark cloud selves: to our egos and our “rights” and our no-one-asked-us opinions and our reputations and our pride.  

It requires awareness: awareness of that burning sensation that rises in you when they say or do that thing.  The ancients called it confession.  It requires practice: forming a different way of responding that doesn’t include arming and defending yourself.  The ancients called this repentance.  It requires prayer: asking for help from the One who paved this way for us on his own cross.

This is painful, but necessary work. Not many are signing up for it.

But it is time for us to do this work.

First.