To be or not to be ... Rude

I was intentionally rude to someone the other day, the practice of which I do not make a habit. But I found myself in a no-win situation and had to make a decision ...

Every pastor gets sideways with some parishoners. You do your best but sometimes the politics or the personalities just don't work out. If we are lucky the folks just go to another church and leave it at that. But mostly we aren't lucky and have to deal with some pretty nasty behavior aimed personally and directly at us. And as pastors we are supposed to eat it up with a big ol' spoon in the hand and a smile on the face, resisting the urge to release our inner cage brawler. That's probably why the disability insurance for ministers is in the same category as high-steel workers and undersea demolitions experts; ten or twenty of thirty years of that kind of suppression means that when we blow, there ain't no coming back.

Any way, I was walking to work the other day and came face to face with a member of the church who had publically bad-mouthed me, made statements that were absolutely false, lied to me when I confronted her about the behavior, and had declared she would never return to our church as long as I was in the pulpit (to which I must admit I had uttered a grateful "Amen").

It had just become public that I will be leaving my current church in October to serve a church in Bellevue, Washington. As we encountered one another on the street that morning she smiled and yelled "Good morning!"

We have not spoken in eighteen months, she dislikes me intensely, and the only thing that made it good for her was that I was leaving in six weeks. And encountering her at that moment meant it definitely was not a good morning for me.

So I simply smiled and grunted. She then began to tell me about how they had just been in Bellevue to visit their daughter and how neat a town it was ... etc., etc. I must admit my blood was boiling, the synapses were firing, and the many nasty speeches which I had mentally rehearsed during the months of her attack on me began to make their way to my tongue ...

Once upon a time a novice asked an ancient desert monk, "Abba, what is humility?" The monk replied: "To do good to those who hurt you." The brother said: "If you cannot go that far, what should you do?" The old man replied: "Get away from them and keep your mouth shut."

I put my head down, buttoned my lips, and just kept on walking without a word. And of course when I was down the road a bit she reverted to form and uttered some rude words at me.

There is no joy in me with the nature of this encounter, but sometimes the best you can do is not make a situation any worse.