Each passing day, week, and month should find us asking ourselves, “Am I any closer to God than before this period started?”
We may look back and find things we’ve done that have distanced us from God, other things that have brought us closer. Last week, for the first time in twenty years or so, I found myself so angry with another person that I actually raised my voice to him.
Started out with a call from a family member. “Dad, this family has been evicted, and there are two adults and five children sleeping in a car. Do you still have an empty house?”
I did, and they moved in. And, made a mess. After promising to pay rent, and making half of the payment they promised, they became increasingly difficult to contact. Several weeks went by, and no return calls from them. Finally, I drove over, and spoke with the father, outside, away from the children. “You have to stop lying and you have to start doing what you say you are going to do.”
He tried to deny lying to me frequently. In the face of my immediate counterpoints, he couldn’t. He had made a life where he was simply sunken into his lies. They had overwhelmed him, and he was spending his time compounding his lies with more lies. The phrase “pathological liar” crossed my mind, and realized that it appeared to apply. But, his wife and children seem very nice, though completely unable to deal with him.
One of last Sunday’s readings was the story of Lazarus and the rich man. We had a fill-in priest giving the homily, and he was interested in “social justice”. I wondered if the Scripture lesson applied to me. “Was I the unfeeling rich man? Was I being too harsh? Should I have pretended that the man was not a compulsive, chronic liar? Should I just let them stay there forever, paying whatever they think is fair, which, so far, seems to be nothing?”
This man seems to be poor, though he told me that his wife makes 40,000/year as a retail supervisor and that he “makes” 30,000/year on his disabilities. If he was telling the truth, and the wife confirmed that he was, he appears to be poor by choice, similar to many of the homeless people who prefer to live on the streets. So, was I right to raise my voice to him, and tell him that he was very wrong to not honor his commitments, or should I have been kinder? Telling him the truth as bluntly as I could may have been the kindest thing to do. It’s quite possible that one had ever done so. Unfortunately, a criminal check soon revealed that he had several convictions for bounced checks.
I was very concerned that they wouldn’t be able to be evicted after winter began. But, they had moved in so quickly that they hadn’t signed a lease. The state law is clear, without a lease they can be evicted in ten days after a constable serves notice. So, it looks as if they’ll be moving again. Soon. Very, very sad.
