If You Can't Say Something Nice, ...

Saturday 6/8/2013 7:57 AM

I am not a confrontational person.  I walk away from an argument or any kind of conflict.  Jaci is much the same way and as a consequence we have had virtually no fights during the course of our marriage.  That is not to say we haven’t had disagreements.  We simply deal with it by using what I call the silent treatment.  I guess that strategy is based upon the saying by Clover, Thumper’s mother, in Bambi, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.”  While that makes for a quiet home, seething beneath the surface there is often frustration, anger, resentment and a host of other feelings, which never get expressed or vented.

This morning I read a quote by C. Fitzsimmons Allison in his book Guilt, Anger and God.  He writes, “To act as if another does not exist is a more hostile act than to slap his face.  In the latter action one at least acknowledges his presence.  The silent treatment is an extremely powerful weapon of aggression.  With God, we are seemingly unable to hurt him in any other way.  The only weapon we can use on him, as a vehicle of our anger at all the suffering he allows, is our silence.”  This makes me reconsider my modus operandi.

I have never thought of my withdrawal from an argument or conflict as an act of aggression.  I have always considered it as taking the high road by not saying things without thinking them through or lashing out in anger, resenting the behavior at a later time.  I’m not exactly sure what alternate way I should deal with situations since I have been doing this for my entire life.

I do not seem to do the same thing in my relationship with God.  When faced with the suffering world I tend to get angry and shout and shake my fist at God rather than give him the silent treatment.  It seems that in the process of ranting and raving to God about the injustices I see that, in my opinion, he fails to adequately address, he will often quietly and gently point out the role I have to play in generating and sustaining those injustices.  He reminds me that if I want things to change, and want God to do something about it, he will use me, and the rest of his children, as his tools to accomplish it.  In other words, I need to confront the injustice and the suffering rather than giving it the silent treatment.