Listen Man

This week I was part of a meeting that became a circus of sarcasm, raised voices, condescension, baiting, berating and other relationship venom. It took a thousand meetings in my lifetime before finally experiencing the Mount St. Helens edition. I expected Jerry Springer to appear in the doorway. There was no real danger of fisticuffs, but it felt like watching a typhoon on an island full of coconuts through a fragile plate glass window.

While sitting there I could find thankfulness for the calm that comes through this weekly process of self-examination, and the mantra that everything's going to be all right. So easy to jump in or lose one's cool, especially as the theoretically half-hour meeting stretched into its 90th minute. So easy to step in and reprimand those in the fray. So freeing to just listen quietly, realizing that the storm would pass and we would regain happiness.