They are the people whom we routinely pray to God about, either ranting and raving, or in tears. Maybe we even ask God to remove them permanently from our lives. They are the people who even "holy" people will call "assholes" behind their backs: they can turn a day at work into a living hell, disrupt our lives by crash-landing their lives, make us feel as if we're living in a soap opera because of their constant drama.
Maybe - if you have suffered from abuse at their hands - they should NOT be in your life. I would never ask you to consider being in their toxic presence. But there are other immature, disruptive people whom we can't avoid. Or that maybe should remain in our lives.
I wonder if Jesus was ever tempted to use THAT WORD about his apostles, or even to ask his Father to remove them from HIS life. I mean, they routinely frustrated him.
He's enjoying a group of kids, and they want to send the kids away. He tries to prepare them for his death, and they argue about power, who's going to sit at his left hand and right as his favorites when he drives out the Romans and becomes the new King. Brothers John and James, nick-named "The Sons of Thunder," probably had giant and inappropriate tempers. These twelve are the group of slowest learners he could have picked. Not to mention their cowardice. Or Judas' betrayal.
The Pharisees were constantly nit-picking about his teaching, constantly insulting him, trying to trip him up: Jesus definitely would have been happier if they were removed from his life. What about the people who constantly crowded around him, asking to be healed, who gave him no rest?
Jesus never asked his Father to remove anyone from his life. Including us. Because he is the Divine Physician, and we are all disabled. We all need healing. We - and the so-called "Assholes" among us - are all disabled by anger, grief, fear, selfishness, pride, frustration, competitiveness, insecurity. Some of us choose to act out immaturely or violently, with our words or actions.
Jean Vanier, Founder of L'Arche, a network of homes for people with disabilities and their caregivers, has spoken about Pauline, a woman who joined his community in 1970, who was epileptic, with one leg and one arm paralyzed: Pauline was "filled with violence and rage" when he first met her. Gradually her caretakers realized that her rage was a plea for help, a cry for the attentiveness that comes with friendship. They mentally put aside the defensive anger that they inwardly felt in reaction to hers. They took time with her. They listened to her.
Their patience and endurance were rewarded with Pauline's growth, her inner movement from violence to peaceful love. Vanier notes "It takes a long time to move from violence to tenderness." Yet the caretakers were also receiving an inner reward: their own inner violence of reactive anger in response to Pauline's violent rage had likewise been replaced with tender love. Vanier, commenting on such human encounters, says "Our society will really become human as we discover that the strong need the weak, just as the weak need the strong."
Jesus told us, "Whatever you do to the least of these ones, you do to Me." We can meet God in the most unexpected places, among the most unexpected people. We can meet Jesus at His most vulnerable, still crucified and suffering in those people we are most likely to call "assholes." Just like Pauline, these are the ones most in need of our patience, our mercy.
I know it's hard. But - whether we only talk to them on the phone for a few minutes, or see them on a regular basis, can we mentally detach ourselves from the feelings of anger and hurt they ignite in us? Can we, instead, ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten and strengthen us so we can approach them with patience as the wounded children that they are? So we can quietly listen? Underneath their anger, their hostility, their dramas and turbulence, our crucified Lord waits for us to recognize Him. And He whispers "Please don't do violence to me with your tongue, your words. Please don't call Me an 'Asshole.'"
"People are unrealistic, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway."
- Mother Teresa
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. Some of us are immature enough to take these feelings out on others. Maybe we all do at one time or another.
"Assholes" are the people who can take our day at work that started just fine and turn it into a day of living hell. Or they routinely disrupt our lives by crash-landing theirs, developing "dramas" worthy of soap operas.