Petty Arguments

I just finished reading a blog post that I thought was rather humorous. It was obviously (as I thought) meant to be entertaining. However, his commenters must have been reading a different piece! Some "got it" and left a "ha ha-good one" type comment on this Christian speaker's post. Others went in a completely different direction and suddenly the commentors began fighting! Some of the comments were quite combative and began using colorful language. Again, a Christian speaker's blog on a very light and innocent topic! 

I'm not sure why these things even happen, but the one that saddened me the most was the person who said, you people make your faith look like a joke! Wow. They were right! Everyone getting all judgy and nasty, going all "Old Testament" on each other on this man's post. Crazy!  I'll bet you're wondering what this guy was talking about to get all these people so mad?? 

Elf on the shelf. Yup. You heard right. He was making a joke about how hard it was to keep up with the tradition of hiding the elf and "competing" with the parents who go over and above his efforts of the mundane things his own elf does. It was much like my joke each year of writing the "perfect Christmas letter", where the 10 year old has just received his doctorate and the 7 year old is singing at Carnegie Hall. Again. So yeah, that kind of silly. 

And yet it turned into a mud-slinging contest because someone didn't take it in the spirit in which it was written. How very human. And then there were those who told those humans to "lighten up" in a not-so-loving way. How very Christian of them. Not!! Silence would have been most effective and yet no one likes that tool. 

We all cry, we are Americans. We can say what we want. We have free speech. First amendment. I say, sure, you can go with that. Or you can go with the fact that you have two ears and one mouth and that has nothing to do with any of those things! 

Be kind. Be free to speak. But do so in love and with respect. We can all agree to disagree. 

P.S. Elf on the shelf is coming back to our house soon. It's only his second year. He only comes to have fun. He doesn't care what the other elves are doing! He's pretty secure! ;)