Answer a fool...

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Or you will also be like him. Proverbs 26:4

Whoops.

I was angry.  Life is unfair.  The anxiety is overwhelming.  I want people to realize that we are all human beings who should be treated with respect.  I want to make people care about others-- or stop caring so much about that small fraction of government money used to provide welfare to help the poor. I want people to think bigger, to realize that there are so many factors involved when you are broken and need help. I want people to be upset about large corporate subsidies and bank bailouts instead (they take up more of the federal budget than food stamps, but its easier to hate me and my children than it is to hate Chase Bank and General Motors). I want too much.  

I answer the FaceBook post quickly.  I wonder why I'm friends with this person who hates the poor so much.  Who hates me so much for being poor.  Who hates my husband for trying to build a business.  Who hates my children for being born to us...  I'm hurt, and in this pain I reply with anger.  I am foolish.

Its quick.  I slap my forehead and realize what I've done as soon as I post the words.  I wish I could take them back.  I am no better than he is.  I am no better than the person who hates the poor, as I answered back to someone only slightly less poor.  There was no right answer.  There was no logical conclusion for them.  Its easier to rage against my family than it is to hate a faceless bank who doesn't care about people. In his mind, I am the national debt.  I am the reason our country is failing.  My answer to a baited question convicts me in a court of people who are one or two steps away from being just like us.  Maybe they are fortunate enough to live near people who can help them.  Maybe they have resources that we don't have.  Maybe they don't know what its like to have a scattered or minimal support system.  Maybe they do.  Maybe I need to think more and respond out of humility and grace.

To whom do I ask forgiveness?  My husband and children for allowing them to be dragged through the mud because I answered a foolish question?

I still worry about how we are perceived.  I never wanted to be hated, but it was just so much more important to make sure my children has access to medical care and food.  

It could have been a lesson in humility, but instead I am humiliated in my foolishness.  This is hard.