2002-07-09 - 11:58 a.m.

Clearing the air

One of the benefits of my personality is a short memory. Once I vent about it openly or secretly kick the wall in my closet, I tend to put the thing out of my mind, at least until next time. When I was young (before marriage which cured me) I had a terrible temper. I still have the remnants of it but You have helped me control it. The blind rage that overtakes me is frightening even when I keep it inside. That is how I know that all of us are only one step away of any crime.

The only one of those rages I have had for several years was last summer when I could see 2d getting set up by g. There was nothing I could do about it except tell 2d and I just never really had the freedom to do so. She knew my experience in the matter, and sort of knew what was coming, and she needs to confront these things in her life without parental fiddling. When it happened, she handled it ok, learned from it and went on. But the feelings I had while the episode was going on were very revealing. Thank You for moment by moment restraint.

The dog and elephant issues aren't items for that rage. Suggestions for dog control haven't worked in the past. My BB gun isn't powerful enough and the menfolk won't trust me with the CO2 gun. Maybe they know something I do not! Sponges soaked in bacon grease and alka seltzer in hamburger are not effective but are great distractions. Most people react when the pocketbook gets involved so the animal control officer is probably the long range solution.

In the meantime, instead of guarding my property with Smith & Wesson, I am using chicken bones and chocolate!! Very satisfying to contemplate but probably very ineffective since all our dogs ,when I was a kid, ate chicken bones and chocolate and loved them and thrived.

The elephant in the living room is harder to solve. That is a euphemism for an insurmountable problem in my life that I only tell You about and even then, not often and not much. That is probably part of the problem! I try to put most of the specifics about the elephant out of my mind and have even forgotten some of the more horrific details. I have written a little about it in my paper journal but only isolated incidents. I have never confided it to a pastor, friend or family member altho I am sure some of those have seen tips of the iceberg at various times. i have never felt it would be glorifying to You to lay out the complexity of the elephant in the living room. It is there, taking up lots of space, very evident, but nobody talks about it. Somehow just mentioning the elephant's existence makes it bearable.

EE's devotional

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