It had been a stressful evening. Late afternoon meetings, dinner, phone call, and family time that went longer than I expected. I flopped down exhausted.
As I began to decompress from the compact ending to the day, out come our child who needed a bit more time with Dad and Mum to chat through some stuff on their mind. I reacted. I was done, done, done and ready to rest.
Communicating with that forced frustrated sigh, I spat back “Bedtime was 8:30, it is well past that, and this consistently happens.” I ended my little outburst with that classic eye roll look that wives have such a unique way of perfecting.
Ouch! As soon as the words leapt out, I knew I had just been done in by blame! Oh my gosh we all know that emotion and go to behaviour. Connection was dead in the water. The shame storm kicked into its next level brewing!
Blame.
News, Internet, Social Media, Politics, Business dealings, School interactions, Church cultures are saturated in it and sadly it shows up in our very own homes! Who’s to blame? Who’s at fault?
It seems we have lost our capacity for discomfort, vulnerability, and a simple life reality that somethings just take time. When we loose our capacity to ‘sit in the mess’ as one spiritual mama used to say, and feel the process, we become powerless and played by it.
Blame is the mindset of powerlessness. Blame is when we target others with our pain. Blame has been defined as “a way to offload discomfort and pain”.
When blame is running the show, accountability goes out the window. It is adverse to it and so slowly but dramatically, decline moves in and settles into our once civilised and well defined cultures.
The great casualties are connection, creativity and a capacity for positive change. Entire civilisations and nations have been the victims of this little nasty piece of human emotion and behaviour. World wars have been started on it.
At the heart of blame is really a story of not enough. This was the lie that got Eve and then Adam. Is what God said, enough? Is what God is, enough? And so human connection with its Creator turned on a dime in one fateful moment.
Painfully and sadly I owned and addressed my story of blame and the not ‘enough’s’ that ran with it. All week I had been combatting the myth of vulnerability is weakness and now again another opportunity to bat that out of my ball park.
I sucked it up and vulnerability showed up with a wincing utterance of ownership, quick flush of a red face and a brave heart in the mouth apology.
To my relief, it was courageously met with grace and forgiveness. This is the power of these two architects of connection. They love to put blame in their sights and target it with their full weight.
Needless to say, our child got their much needed space to chat. My shame storm quickly fizzled away and I sunk into that awkward but necessary space of self forgiveness.
My story of ‘not enough’ finally arrived tumbling onto the shores of His enough, Jesus the Champion.
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