I try very hard to be a gracious person. I’m not always successful but, I give it a good try most of the time. I try to see the best in people. Try to think about what God sees or what might have wounded that person such that they behave the way they do. Sometimes I even get so smug about how wonderful and gracious I am that I get downright self-righteous about it.
Which, of course, defeats the whole purpose.
The reality is, I’m not all that gracious, no matter how hard I try. And I realize that when I encounter stupid people, I just can’t seem to muster any grace. ‘Stupid people’ is a relative term, to be sure. I have my own definition though: anyone rude, cruel, entitled, and generally unkind.
I probably fit my own definition more than I’d like to admit.
Nevertheless, I encountered ‘stupid people’ the other day while at a garden center. With autumn and winter approaching I thought I should go talk to someone with composting expertise about what to do with my compost barrel through the cooler months. I walked up and down the rows of spindly trees sitting in large buckets. They were all tagged and for some reason reminded me of the elk in Rocky Mountain National Park with their tagged antlers. Anyway, I searched up and down the aisles for an employee and, at the same time, noticed a boy running up and down those same aisles. There weren’t very many customers around and he didn’t seem to be bothering anyone. But, I did wonder what he was doing.
He ran past me once and I saw what was happening. He had a dog on a leash, and a little bunny was running frantically to get away from the dog. But, the boy kept letting the dog’s leash out just enough to be right on the bunny’s tail. Boy and dog were happily chasing the poor terrified rabbit.
I found the scene disconcerting.
Granted, I am a pacifist and a vegetarian and believe we should hold all manner of life in high regard. I abhor violence. I don’t even like to kill bugs. To the degree possible I transport spiders and insects outside if they happen to end up in my house. Once this summer we had a fire in the backyard and a rolly-polly bug was on a piece of wood. I couldn’t be content at the fire until the bug was safely removed and placed back into the yard. And, once in a while, we have mice that try to get into the house when the cold weather settles in. I try very hard to encourage them back outdoors before we have to resort to setting traps.
So yes, I’m a bit of a freak.
Nevertheless, I can’t stand to see cruelty. Not to humans, not to animals, not to anything. So there I was witnessing a boy of maybe 11, terrorizing a rabbit with a dog on a leash. It didn’t set well with me. Although I was agitated by the scene, I tried to mind my own business and kept looking for an employee to discuss compost. But then the dog got too close to the rabbit and the boy yanked on the leash and the dog yelped out in pain and I’d had enough. I reproached the boy with, “Don’t do that. You are being unkind.”
At that point an older woman looked at me and asked what he was doing. I didn’t know who she was or what association she had with little Napoleon and his buddy Cujo but, I responded to her question. Then another, younger, woman said it didn’t matter, he wasn’t hurting the rabbit, and that the dog was on a leash. I really wanted to suggest that, maybe, is where the boy should be...but didn't. I was aware at that point I was dealing with mom and grandma. I’m not sure what would have been the right way to handle the situation. As it was, I shook my head and walked away. I wouldn’t have been able to speak kindly. Nor did I believe they would listen to my feelings and give them any credence.
But, if I had said what I was thinking I would have told them that it did, in fact, matter very much. I would have asked if it was okay for the boy to pick on someone smaller or handicapped at school, just because he could. I would have asked if it was okay for that same boy to verbally abuse his wife or kids when he is older just because he could. Maybe terrorize them a little bit without actually physically harming them. What would that hurt?
Granted, the boy was terrorizing a rabbit, not a person. But it does matter. It matters a lot. Terrorizing any living creature for the pure pleasure of it is troubling to say the least. Do we not have responsibility for the care of all living creatures, both human and otherwise?
I get that there are times when our lives intersect with creatures and we have to take action. If there is a rattlesnake or Black Widow spider in my house, yeah, I’m going to facilitate its demise! That isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a mother and a grandmother allowing a boy to terrorize a small animal for no reason aside from the glee in his eyes when he jerked the dog’s leash so hard the dog yelped and the terrified little rabbit kept running. Great kid you’ve got there ladies.
So much for grace.
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