Critical Eye

I like to think I have a critical eye. I like to match colors and textures, I think I have an appreciation for things that are done well and the desire to improve my work. I think that excellence comes in all forms and I love to celebrate it. I try never to be overly critical of myself or others but I do like to evaluate how things have been done to see if there is room for improvement.

This became a joke during the first year of contemporary worship. Being part of the implementation was a green light for me to adopt this service as if it were all about me and worry to death over ever moment. I used to go home every Sunday and start my list of things that were wrong. My friend Peg, equally neurotic, and I would spend two days grieving over a poor introduction, a bad musical moment, forgetting to light the candles. We had to go to Overanalyzers Anonymous for several months and take the "I shall not pick" pledge before we could graduate back into normalcy.

Lately though I have been wondering if I also have a critical spirit. This isn't quite so admirable. A critical spirit is much more like the dark side, looking for the fault, being hyper critical and tearing down instead of building up, ignoring the positives and emphasizing the negatives.

I was quite sure this could not be true of me. I have known several people with a critical spirit, and I am closely related to one. I was determined to not allow this spirit to get it's grimy paws on my being and have rebuked it any number of times by saying : "Maybe they are having a bad day", "maybe that was an honest mistake", "maybe they just thought they had 20 items". I have tried to look on the bright side, give people the benefit of the doubt and turn the other cheek. I have majored in turning the other cheek. And as for letting go and putting buckets down, I might give a seminar. I have even a beautifully designed bucket I keep in my work space to remind me to let it go.

So where does this critical spirit come from? I have noticed that I have a few places where I cannot get back to ground zero. I am not exactly over the something, whatever that may be. So the next something doesn't need to be very big before I begin to feel the irritation build and the bucket ends up back in my hands. Lately, I haven't even needed a new event. I watch for a little crevice of a possible, might under certain circumstances be construed as a something to get a nasty attitude. This does not become me, and I don't like me this way. I want that old rose colored glasses girl who thinks the cup is always pretty doggone full and there is a party going on somewhere, if one just looks long enough.

I think recovery is in remembering that I am just as much a knucklehead as anyone else on the planet. I need a lot of grace, even from myself. I can hardly need so much without being willing to dispense quite a bit too. I lose my sweetness when grace has been given and behavior has not changed. Then we have to move to phase two. This is where I remind myself that I am lots of things and certainly well advanced among my species but still not quite God. In fact, not close to being God. And all these people I share the planet with are not really here to suit my fancy, as much as I would like this to be the case. And while I am permitted to rebuke and exhort, bottom line is that it is mostly between them and God. Lately phase two isn't enough either. I am stuck in the rebuke/exhort mode and can't quite get to the them/God stage.

I have decided that phase three must be the pray for your enemies phase. I will say with complete honesty, none of my buckets are enemies. I love them all in one way or another. But I think it's really the same prayer. I need to learn to live and love because of and despite their shortcomings. I can only do that through prayer. Prayer is the vehicle that God uses most often to change our minds, our hearts and our vision. I think that as I breathe in the depth of God's love for me, I will breathe out more of God's love for others.

I hope to keep the critical eye, but replace the critical spirit. Perhaps the answer to a critical spirit is the Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit, come.