I Jest

You ever have someone read you completely wrong, or at least you think they are. I have it happen all the time; people take my humor as reality. I have a very sarcastic humor and somewhat dry, so they have trouble reading me. It drives me crazy, sometimes I feel I need a sign around me saying, “Don’t take me seriously, I don’t” but they would most likely not take the sign seriously, and still read me wrong.

Sometimes it gets to the point where I don’t want to talk at all, it’s like people look for things to pick out, and they try to find a reason to get mad at what I say. If people really knew me they would understand that, for the most part, I am only jesting. I am not a person who tries to hurt others, or to bring them down, if anything I hold most people up, I feel that most people have gifts and talents I do not, I see nothing of exceptionalness in me, but see it in others. I, as part of my humor, will state my greatness, but in truth I only feel I am doing ok, that what gifts I have, if I have any, are of no great value. But in others I see greatness.

I am sure some of it, or most of it is me, I expect everyone to understand me, to get me. But in truth I am just one of many, so should I expect everyone else to understand me, but not me understanding other? It’s because of my humanity, my fallen nature, I want to be understood, but not to understand, I want to be accepted, but not to accept.

St. Francis’s pray is the perfect prayer for all of humanity

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

 

We all need help in reaching out to others; we all need help in not looking only inside. We are human, we are weak and we all need Grace from God.

Paul