May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
-Irish Blessing

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Does One Bad Seed Spoil the Apple?

I find myself waking to a country song repeating in my head and while I can't relate to a lot of them in many ways (though I thoroughly enjoy them nonetheless) there is one that I can extrapolate on.  Two Black Cadillacs.  Now if you know this song, you may be saying, wait a minute!  I'll put you at ease quickly - my husband has not had an affair and I have not plotted to or succeeded in killing him.  Now that we have that settled....

The lyrics say something like "[t]he preacher said he was a good man and his brother said he was a good friend but the women in the two black veils didn't bother to cry".  Of course my first thought was what a dirt bag this guy was, how could there be anything good to say about him?  But then once I started thinking a little deeper it occurred to me that perhaps he was a good friend.  If he was a father, he could have even been a good father.  Obviously he was a lousy husband and a lousy boyfriend but the question then becomes ...

    Does a bad deed, even a very bad deed, make a bad person?

I struggle with this question because my instinct says yes.  My relation to this song comes from some interpersonal relationships and judgments that I have made in those relationships based on the other parties' behaviors.  I have deemed these behaviors bad and so I have attached that label.  Once that label is stuck on, goodness gracious do I find it hard to peel back.  The fact that I have made these judgments in the first place pains me and is a different topic for perhaps a different day but I've done it so we'll move on.

Could I be wrong?  Absolutely!  Have I ever made bad choices?  Absolutely!  So why am I throwing stones?  Short answer - weeding my garden.  Wyatt and Eli have brought great introspection to my life and how I lead it as well as who I let grow in my garden.  I've come to realize that some people can act as weeds in my garden.  Their negative energy, words and actions can threaten to overtake the beauty which I carefully guard within.  I've learned that a weed is a weed and no matter how nicely you treat it, a weed will grow all over your flowers, veggies and fruit and make absolutely no apologies.  My weed removal method of choice is to pull them very slowly from the ground taking care to remove the entire root system if at all possible.  As an aside, it is also really fun to burn them with a handheld torch until they shrivel and die!

Yet all of this still leaves me speechless.  I don't have the answer.  Perhaps there is goodness.  Honestly I want there to be goodness but I have yet to find it.  So I will leave you to ponder and maybe even contribute to this discussion.  Does badness eclipse goodness?  Can they coexist?



8 comments:

  1. I would like to talk to u in private. Cant find ur email. Could u please write it for me?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hope u same my msg. We have similar situation. Would really like to talk to u :(

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have an email contact form now on my front page. Please feel free to email me with your story.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cant find ur email. Could u write it down here?
    Its kinda important :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Go to the right side of this web page and look right above the picture of the mushroom, there is an email form which you can fill out and it will bring up my email for you to send. Let me know if that doesn't work.

      Delete
  5. well it doesn't work. don't know why. i see where to write, but when i click on "send" it doesnt do anything.
    anyways, if it's so hard to give me your email then never mind
    had 2 pregnancies with potter syndrome- no kidneys. i thought of talking to you, maybe you could help lighting our way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would hope you understand my hesitance to post my email address, especially in light of the fact that I post so very little specific personal information on this site. I have kept my information mostly private on purpose. I am sorry this seems to have offended you.

      If you would like to talk, please use this email but you will have to fix it up (i.e., delete the text that says delete and put in the @ and .com instead of how I've written it out) as I don't want trollers to get ahold of it very easily so I don't get bombarded with spam.

      fromundertheweepingwillowatgmaildotcom

      -Mandy

      ps - I am sorry to hear of your losses. Unfortunately if you are looking for answers, our family has none. We have been blessed with healthy living girls but we don't know why they are healthy and our sons were not.

      Delete
    2. Oops, I see that my delete language was deleted by html, so disregard that portion, just fix up the rest of the email as needed.

      Delete

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