I was sitting at the table with my sister the other day with her family buzzing all around us and after one of my comments she reprimanded me, saying I am too negative.  She didn’t articulate her concerns well, none the less I am not so hard I am not concerned with her judgment of me.  She gave examples and with my blog theme and general focus these days, I’ve been proud of my skepticism.

Last year while debating liberals on the climate scam, I won the debate on a quote from history backed by a present day scientific study (because liberals love expert advice so much and peer reviewed scientific studies) that experts were just as likely to steer you wrong as right.  Worse they tended to possess an unmerited confidence in their grasp of their own field of study.  So the quote was something to the effect, acceptance without skepticism is folly.  I’ll have to go dig up the quote again to bring the impact it had on the debate.  Anyway, I also wrote an article about the difference between micro-policies and macro-policies.  Macro being politics and micro being personal moral standards.  When we confuse their applications, micro policies in governmental relationships and responsibility, these politics affect sometimes billions of people as in global warming policy.  When macro policies are applied to personal relationships, prejudices abound and your closest friends and family members suffer.

What my sister had expressed with the wrong word but a couple of examples was my skepticism (immediate and prejudiced) toward my family’s individual characters and quality.  I was a doubter, according to Miriam Webster, a scoffer and a mocker.  My sister’s word didn’t sting.  I didn’t feel the sting until late the next day when I did some research on the definitions involved with the theme of my blog and my philosophical thesis.  Investigation is healthy no matter what type of relationship you possess, but expressing that suspended judgment of skepticism to your loved ones is hurtful and feels like a prejudice.  I owe my nephew and niece an apology each.  I’ve relearned not to jump at the chance to correct, first the kid needs the opportunity to discover many rights and wrongs for themselves, as an adult you just need to help them learn how to do that.  Second, you must be sure of your grasp on the topic because you’re prejudices are constantly at work whether you acknowledge them or not.  If not, those prejudices have the power to destroy personal relationships.  Maybe the kid has less of a grasp on the topic but if you correct them and are proven wrong, especially if this is frequent, your loving criticism being unwarranted will morph into motivation in the kid to be shed of you at his or her earliest convenience.

If you act this way with adults, they have every right to be shed of you immediately.  Gratefully, my adult family members are graceful enough to tolerate each others growing pains even at these late stages of our development.  This is what it means to grow in grace, day by day.  Thank God we have the example in Jesus Christ to take on a character above our feelings, and above our training in personal relationships in families with broken spirits.