I am a Struggling Hypocrite

  "I don't like it when you talk disrespectfully to me," Turtle said, her voice broken and her tears flowing.  "When you talk that way to us I want to say to you: 'we need to be respected too and we are owned by God too and you need to talk respectfully to us too!"

We stood across the kitchen from each other and her words, brave and teary, stood in the air for a moment.

 I knew that this was truth in my daughter's face and voice.  The words came from deep within her and I was shaken.  I was asking for respect without giving it.  And it wasn't the first time.

The swell in my heart was so strong, so many conflicts.  My stubborn pride, my "right" to correct the legitimately rude words I had been hearing, my desire to come out of this fight with the upper hand -- these things were battling against the truth in her teary eyes and the truth in me.  I heard the words she chose -- the plural of we and us -- and I recognized the champion heart of my girl -- the defending and protecting that comes so naturally to her.  My heart broke a little at the reminder of my children . . .and yet not mine, "owned by God" and lent to me for safekeeping.  And I was humbled.

This work is so hard.  This work of mothering.  Time and again I am brought up against these hypocrisies in myself and wonder who I am to be asking for virtue in my children.  Who am I to ask for respect -- or honesty, or kindness, or generosity or anything --when I cannot give it?  I can talk about the ways to go, but I cannot walk in them myself.  I am a hypocrite!

Aren't we all?  We cannot always give back what we demand for ourselves.

We have the right to expect a certain treatment from others, to expect a justice in which what we measure out will be measured back to us, that our "Belovedness" will be recognized and we will be loved.  Sometime in each of our lives, probably very early on, we were treated unjustly and that inner integrity of knowing that we come from a just God was shaken by another's treatment of us.  It isn't fair and it isn't right.

This tangle of human relationships is hard to navigate.  With tears, with anger, with stabs to the heart, with so many wounds we struggle, torn between the urges of our brokenness and the well of Truth in our hearts.  Ultimately virtue -- respect, honesty, kindness, patience, all of it -- isn't practiced because we want to get it back from others.  True virtue is practiced because it is the right thing to do.  So when I sometimes say to my children, in frustration and anger "I deserve respect!" I am right!  I am so very right, but it is not the whole truth.  The end of that sentence is ". . . and so do you, whether you give it to me or not."  As my wise friend told me, "We don't teach our children to only be respectful when they are respected.  We teach them to be respectful because it is the right way to act."  And yet, these are words I need to live by, words I need to take to heart, lest I become stuck in my hypocrisy.

By Bella Face Photography

As I walked across the kitchen to take my daughter in my arms, choking down pride, I felt blessed to be in that moment.  Loved by my daughter, loved by my God, whether I am virtuous or not, whether I am respectful or not.

"For if you love those who love you, what 
reward have you?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others?  Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."  (Mt 5:46-48)