Today was not the best day at church. The last speaker was a self-righteous, ignorant, condescending [insert offensive noun]. Right before the first speaker began her talk, her cell phone rang. She apologized and commented that she was already off to a rocky start. 45 minutes later, Mr. last speaker began. He pretended to pull out a cell phone and talk on it for a solid twenty seconds. “Hi. Not much. I’m just in sacrament meeting. Yeah, things to do. So how are things going?...” He then made a comment that people should show some respect/decency and turn off their phones. For the next 20 minutes, he said nothing of even superficial significance and ran ten minutes past closing time. He ended with “This just my opinion [he elaborately throws his tie over his shoulder], but I say that the only reason the world progressed technologically was because of the light of Christ that entered it during the time of the restoration. Yep, the dark ages lasted a long time, but the gospel ended them.”Livid, I frantically began searching for stones, rotten fruit, bowling pins, anything to serve as a projectile. How could someone prove to be such an ignorant asshole in so little time?
I calmed down and started thinking (yes, always a dangerous thing for me). “What is the Christlike thing to do?” Walking up to the guy and chucking him out of the building with my boot firmly lodged in his rectum was a little too aggressive; he wasn’t exchanging money after all. But doing nothing like my roommate suggested was too passive for something I picture Christ doing.
Throughout Sunday school, I thought of my options. Bodily harm – too much vengeance. Verbal thrashing – too much wrath. Assertive”you suck” confrontation – more about me than him. Casual “Good talk man. I loved how you forgot you weren't the bishop and publicly criticized someone outside your stewardship. I also loved how you shared your ridiculous viewpoint on history and science, topics you obviously know nothing about.” – still too vindictive. A dead end every time. I couldn’t think of anything that would be more about helping the dude than me putting him in his place happy to take down church subculture one Crisco-haired jerk at a time.
Eventually, the class hit on a chunk of D&C 121. You rebuke and then show an increase of love afterwards. I had zero love for that guy and was incidentally forced to conclude that there was no possible way to confront him in a Christlike manner.
I should have clocked him with my shoe and been done with it.
4 comments:
I think you'd be right to do the following things:
The throwing him out the window (as long as your boot doesn't drag you down with him...) thing
or
Tell him how great an asshole he is with the "love how you criticized people and then didn't have a clue what you were talking about" bit.
The thing is, it'd feel nice for you, and it probably would be good for him too. Then, the whole outpouring of love bit. I can't really advise on that one, though... I'm thinking not being mean anymore might count?
I keep re-reading this post and getting an extreme sense of satisfaction. I'm just going to keep coming back each time I run into this type.
This post made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Really. It's nice to know someone else is awake enough in sacrament meeting to understand when something goes terribly, terribly wrong.
On a related note, I think that the hymnals are provided as a projectile in addition to their aid with the music. Just a thought.
Wow. Damn. Wow. As Matt Stone and Trey Parker say in their first movie musical "Cannibal: The Musical" "Let's hang the bastard!"
I am a little saddened though that you ran into so many dead ends. If only you had been able to snap his figurative neck.
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