Action and Motive

It happens so quickly I am often left a little stunned myself. These words, hurtful and abrasive, somewhat unintentional, fly from a dark corner of my mind, and shoot out with a dagger-like sharpness. I know what they can do, but it's as if I don't have control over my own tongue.

I lost it for a while. This unexplainable power of using my words to make others feel as hurt as I do. It's crazy to think that this problem was actually worse when I was younger. I prided myself on the fact that I could turn most arguments around with one quick, witty yet malicious, remark. This continued on until I recognized this disgusting norm of mine around my second year of college. Before then, I considered this habit an endearing quirk of my personality. I would tell myself, "everyone is different, this is how I process, I have the right to speak my mind". How self righteous and thoughtless I became over the extensive period of time I lived this way.

As I mentioned before, it disappeared for a while. I found a medium between being honest about my feelings, and expressing them in more considerate ways. It felt good. But, I think there is a responsibility in recognizing nasty habits, changing them, but also monitoring them long after the change. Otherwise, they could return as quickly as they left.

And so mine has. At first I blamed it on being here. Living on minimal needs in terms of food, clothing, sanitation, and communication, weather that kills handfuls of people every season, and being a female in a country where my gender automatically objectifies me in the eyes of local men. Most days I feel like a walking target. And so living with a higher amount of fear mixed with repressed anger, as a result of frustrating encounters, has led me to once again use harsh words as a mechanism or means of feeling in control. The important thing to remember is that my circumstances are not the issue, my complete lack of trust and this pursuit for control are the means in which my actions stem. These motives, these hidden objectives are what spur any action I do, whether it be the words I speak or the way in which I serve or withhold serving others. This is what needs to be fixed. Not the conditions in which I am in. My actions essentially provide a recognition of the bigger issue. When I lash out with my words, as unintentional as they may seem in my own mind, they are acting as a mirror to who I really am.

Acknowledging the ugly acts we do is not merely enough. Even seeking forgiveness for those acts is just one step closer to the real work that should be done. We must seek what our actions are evidence of. What is provoking us in the tiniest of ways. What bigger issues are we masking? It's learning to see ourselves in the light of our sin because often sin is fueled by the love of self. And so these sinful, self-seeking ways are what must be pulled out by the root. It's what we must surrender and trust that we are incapable of fixing on our own. In our own human weakness, we are quicker to bury than we are to kill, especially if it means killing more of ourselves for the sake of Christ.

I came across what has to be one of my favorite piece of writing by C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity. I think it does a wonderful job of verbalizing the relationship between action and incentive.

Here is a snippet of what he says:

"We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstances as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man: it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.

What we are mattes even more than what we do. What we do matters chiefly as evidence of what we are- then it follows that the change which I most need to undergo is a change that my own direct, voluntary efforts cannot bring about. And this applies to my good actions too. How many of them were done for the right motive? How many for fear of public opinion, or a desire to show off? How many from a sort of obstinacy or sense of superiority which, in different circumstances, might equally have led to some very bad act? But I cannot, by direct moral effort, give myself new motives. After the first few steps in the Christian life we realize that everything which really needs to be done in our souls can be done only by God."