WHY LOVE BOASTS NOT

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back. Let’s think about boasting.

When I played football, I loved defeating an opponent. If I could stick a quarterback or a running back so hard that they fumbled or whooshed when they fell backwards, I loved to stand over them and taunt them.

There are some of those I wish I could take back.

We who love do not boast. It’s one thing to boast in jest, as if we are acting out a tall tale about ourselves, but to exalt ourselves over others at their expense is most unkind.

I do not like situations where I am competing for a job or some kind of recognition with the result being someone else’s feelings get hurt.

I can take it. Last January I interviewed for a job that I desperately needed because the place where I worked really worked havoc on me.

During the interview, I tried to toot my own horn, as they say, even though I prefer situations where others brag about me. I had heard that another teacher who worked for the same company I worked for had also interviewed for this position.

Had I been a script writer for a cable show, I would have written myself as funny and ironic with a predilection towards ripping others to pieces for a good laugh. I would have written myself mentioning that other teacher in some clever way as a setup for pernicious criticism.

But I have never been a character on television. I knew that other teacher probably felt as desperate as I. I wanted the principal to choose between us based on our merits as teachers and his instructional need in his building.

As it turned out he hired neither of us, but a person of color in order to offset the racial unbalance in his English department.

Looking back on that, and having witnessed since that time the unethical response of the company I worked for towards another who sought to skedaddle, plus seeing where I am now, I believe providence put me in my current, much better place.

The love our God of love persuades us to avoid self exaltation especially when our being lifted up is at the expense of another.

Blessings…