Mea culpa

Another character trait of mine: Quick to anger, quick to make rash actions when angry.

I'm working on it.

Earlier, I posted a blog post while I was very upset. Almost immediately after I hit "post" I realized:

a). By posting, I was guilty of doing exactly what the person who angered me had done. Yuck. Hypocrisy is not pretty one anyone, least of all me. I'm sorry.

and b). I really need to work on not getting angry, offended, or defensive as much as I do. I've struggled with it a long time and I need to learn to hold my tongue so I don't say things I regret. Or make a big deal out of things that shouldn't be a big deal. Working on this character flaw will help me lead a happier, healthier life.

Just as quickly as I realized these things, a story I heard in church once flew into my mind:

While living in Far West, Missouri, Sister Marsh and Sister Harris decided to exchange milk so they could each make a larger cheese than they otherwise could. They agreed to send each other both the milk and the cream from their cows. But Sister Marsh saved a pint of cream from each cow and sent Sister Harris the milk without the cream.

A quarrel arose, and the matter was referred to the bishop. When he determined that Sister Marsh had violated her agreement, she and her husband were upset and appealed the matter to the high council and then to the First Presidency. Each council approved the original decision that Sister Marsh had been in error.

Thomas B. Marsh declared that he would sustain the character of his wife. Soon afterward, he turned against the Church and went before a government official to declare that the Latter-day Saints were hostile toward the state of Missouri. (See George A. Smith, in Journal of Discourses, 3:283–84.)
President Gordon B. Hinckley said of this incident: “What a very small and trivial thing—a little cream over which two women quarreled. But it led to, or at least was a factor in, Governor Boggs’ cruel exterminating order which drove the Saints from the state of Missouri, with all of the terrible suffering and consequent death that followed. The man who should have settled this little quarrel, but who, rather, pursued it, … lost his standing in the Church. He lost his testimony of the gospel” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1984, 111; or Ensign, May 1984, 83).

It's really easy to get offended. Little things get under our skin and wear away at us, festering, growing dark and ugly and taking us places we don't want to go. That's not a person I want to be. I'm sorry for the ugliness I showed in my last post.

Unfortunately, blogspot is not the most sophisticated of web publishing tools. I have deleted the rash post, but it's still showing up in my blogfeed. Apparently, there's no way to get it down. So my nastiness is out there for the world to see. Lesson learned, however embarrassing.