Do It Now

"Our insistence in proving that we are right is nearly always an indication that there has been some point of disobedience" -- Oswald.

What is the big attraction to being right? I'm not sure I can answer that, but I know it's huge. We choose being right over relationship time and time again.

To be honest, I see this most clearly in the relationship between my daughters. Much of the time, they are the best of friends, but when they fight, it is mean-spirited, vicious and hateful. When they fight, they have trouble remembering that they were ever friends. To be fair, when they are friends, it's difficult to believe that they were ever so hateful to each other. They make food for each other, watch girl movies, sleep in the same bed, giggle and tell secrets for hours and hours on end. And then, abruptly, they're willing to sacrifice all of that over some small point of contention, over the need to be right. They will insist upon justice -- or their version of it -- as adamantly as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

Partly, I think, they take it for granted that the other person will always be there, that they can cling churlishly to their point in this moment and not really lose anything. They can be right and have the relationship, too. Only, sometimes when the heat escalates to the boiling point, I wonder, can you really go back? Is something lost in the churlish clinging? Is some small permanent damage done?

Here's the thing I know: I've been able to trace the root of almost every sin I see in my children back to myself. So I ask myself, to what am I churlishly clinging? Where have I allowed my need to be right to take precedence over relationship?