Better Seattle

Valerie Cox must have truly been inspired

to come up with a poem that I've cherished for years not for how it makes me feel, but for how I'd like to avoid feeling. Perhaps she caught the idea like a virus or experienced it first hand and it plagued her until she shook it out of herself on paper and clamped the book shut on it. One of my favorite poems, it captures the intimate message of some of my own botched experiences and also what at times I so earnestly wish I might convey to  a few others.

Humility is not exactly revered in our culture. Humble people are often seen as weak or pushovers, perhaps not intelligent, or maybe ignorant of what they're "worth". In some parts of the country, humility is viewed as a disease. If you know you have value, you should promote it, right? But how much? Where does the buck stop? Is it wrong to admit you're wrong, or to suspend judgment of others and weigh the likelihood of a non-fully objective lens?

Have you ever been convinced of something that later you realize you had wrong? I certainly have. Sometimes even as much as a decade later I realize the mistake of my ways.

The realization jarred me. Now I can't presume utter "correctness". I've banged into the wall of objectivity and found that I'm not the "point of beginning". I am not truly objective, no matter how much I desire to be.

Jesus, the greatest teacher, modeled humility in such a way that the most revered and popular individuals of his day belittled and mocked him for it. He countered the thinking in his culture, associating with people everyone else frowned upon. "Don't you know your value lies in how good you are? How many good things you do?" Jesus didn't think so. He spoke in love even when they took his life for it. He represented a truth people couldn't live with, couldn't accept.

Jesus has shaped my life in endless ways. He is my greatest teacher, and I desire to love others, honoring their humanity ("fragility") and they're intrinsic worth as he did.

I have learned that I can never go wrong in giving love. When I think someone deserves less, even with actions damaging to my professional life, they deserve to be treated with dignity. I am not the judge. I am not the one to dish "revenge". Sometimes that may even mean not defending myself, if necessary, if doing so would humiliate them. Sometimes showing love in the way a person needs it most is what costs you the most. And love given, or mercy shown, may never be appreciated.

Just as years later I've come to see my own wrongs against others, it is feasible that some of my wrongs I have not realized yet, or may never realize. Without love and unmerited generosity towords others, our world could have never made it as long as it has.

I have hope, though, that the love that Jesus modeled is enough to save us yet.

The Cookie Thief

The Cookie Thief
by Valerie Cox

A woman was waiting at an airport one night,
With several long hours before her flight.
She hunted for a book in the airport shops.
Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book but happened to see,
That the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be.
Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between,
Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

So she munched the cookies and watched the clock,
As the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
Thinking, "If I wasn't so nice, I would blacken his eye."

With each cookie she took, he took one too,
When only one was left, she wondered what he would do.
With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh,
He took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half, as he ate the other,
She snatched it from him and thought... oooh, brother.
This guy has some nerve and he's also rude,
Why he didn't even show any gratitude!

She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate,
Refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.

She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat,
Then she sought her book, which was almost complete.
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise,
There was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.

If mine are here, she moaned in despair,
The others were his, and he tried to share.
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.