the goon squad

It's amazing to me how fast I can turn into a vengeful angel, full of wrath and fury.

I'm at work yesterday, having a generally crummy time and feeling 53 steps behind, when I get a call. It's a local business owner, an important advertiser for the little skiff of a newspaper that I helm. I won't go into details, but she wrongly accused me of all sorts of foul deeds, even threatening legal action at one point. I got in serious trouble with both my bosses and had to write a letter apologizing for the alleged infraction. It was one of those incidents that make me question my choice of profession, that make me want to go open a Gyro stand somewhere on the coast of California.

Well, that night, as I watched "The Prestige" with my First Mate, son and a roomful of our collegians, my boss called. The business owner had called him and apologized for the whole thing, explaining that she'd misunderstood and didn't have all the information and how she felt terrible for loosing her temper. In other words, I was put through the wringer, but that's OK because she said she was sorry.

It wasn't really OK, though. I wanted vengeance. It was an immediate, palpable reaction, like craving sushi. I needed her to feel the same thing she made me feel. I wanted her to go home with a heart as heavy as mine.

Man. What is that? I've been following Christ for 17 years now. I know all "the stuff." I know the verses. I've heard countless sermons, read the books, seen the movies. But at the slightest provocation, I'm right back in that ugly place. I'm Smeagol letting himself get pushed around by Gollum, his alter ego.

This post isn't going to provide any answers. It certainly won't offer any profound new observations.

One thing I noticed this time, though, was this need to make things better. We can't really make things better, can we? In the past, I've heard this notion that when we become Christians, we have to pay restitution, somehow, to all those people we've ever hurt. I've made a few of those calls, to people from my past who I felt deserved an apology.

That's a nice sentiment, but who does it really help? Isn't it more for my own sake? When the Little Master does something wrong, he says "I'm sorry" over and over again. But that doesn't really fix anything. It doesn't repair the leather chair that he's skewered like a baked potato.

No, when things like that happen, the Crew Chief and I have to forgive him, without expectation of repair of any sort or degree. We forgive him because we love him.

Grace is huge. It's huge and uncompromising. That's ironic, isn't it. The foundation of Christ's love for us is unfathomable and impossible. We try to dance around it. We want the fine print. We try to add parenthetical remarks or explanatory clauses or supplementary amendments. But none of it sticks.

Grace is Andre the Giant. "I am the goon squad" Grace says to me when I demand payment for wrongs done. And then he bops me on the head.