My tale of the day

[HaggisShuu]

There is a polish lady who lives on the ground floor of our building who literally sits outside smoking all day.

When we first moved to our block of flats, we chatted with her quite a bit, then she tried selling us a home made dumpling subscription service, for £20 a week, she'll drop us off some dumplings and trying to get us to order from her new fish and chip shop (which failed.) 

After these 2 encounters I became alot more skeptical of her friendliness and reduced the level of chat I engaged in accordingly. 

Then, once our baby was born, getting in and out of the flat was alot more effort than it was before, and we accidentally left the glass doors into the building open a few times, and she had a snap at us calling us inconsiderate because we were letting the cold in and yada yada. So I reduced the already limited chat to one word "Hello's" as we walked past, we also started occasionally using the other set of doors to come in if she was smoking, because we have a baby now and I didn't want her breathing in smoke. 

Today, we walked past her and I didn't say Hello to her. We were trying to get the car seat, baby, pram and a few bags of shopping in, so I wasn't really paying attention, and she was out hanging her washing on an airer so I didn't think too much of it. She snapped at us saying we didn't have any manners, were avoiding her, acting like she has the plague and topped it off with a "I think you're racist"

Needless to say this experience has left me with some mixed feelings. 

[NeuroTypical]

I learned long ago that sometimes, people's anger directed at me says more about them, than me.  And sometimes it's not the best idea to attempt to deal with someone's excess emotion.

A long time ago, when we lived in a poorer area, we were walking out to our car to drive somewhere on Christmas Eve.   Up the street came a crying lady, approaching us asking for help.  Between sobs she let us know something horrible had happened, some fight with a boyfriend or husband or something, she had been wronged.  We offered to drive her to the police station or ER or something.  She got a surprisingly-obvious devious look on her face, and asked us to drive her past a certain house.  We said no, but re-iterated if she was hurt, we could get her to the cops or the hospital.   In a heartbeat, we became the bad guys in her sobbing story, horrible racist white people for not helping a black lady.  We got into the car amid screams of "merry f*&$ng christmas!".

The 2nd great commandment demands that we love our neighbor.  There's no exception given for random people who only occasionally cross our paths.  It's important to know what love looks like, and what it doesn't.   For us on Christmas Eve, love looked like an offer to take someone to people who could help, and a refusal to be a chauffeur to help her carry out whatever drama she had going in her life.   

When you kneel at the feet of your Savior, and He asks you "how did you love that polish lady who called you racist?", what sort of answer do you want to have ready to give?  "I didn't seem to be able to do much for her, but I tried to have love for her in my heart" might be one answer.

[HaggisShuu]

2 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

I learned long ago that sometimes, people's anger directed at me says more about them, than me.  And sometimes it's not the best idea to attempt to deal with someone's excess emotion.

A long time ago, when we lived in a poorer area, we were walking out to our car to drive somewhere on Christmas Eve.   Up the street came a crying lady, approaching us asking for help.  Between sobs she let us know something horrible had happened, some fight with a boyfriend or husband or something, she had been wronged.  We offered to drive her to the police station or ER or something.  She got a surprisingly-obvious devious look on her face, and asked us to drive her past a certain house.  We said no, but re-iterated if she was hurt, we could get her to the cops or the hospital.   In a heartbeat, we became the bad guys in her sobbing story, horrible racist white people for not helping a black lady.  We got into the car amid screams of "merry f*&$ng christmas!".

The 2nd great commandment demands that we love our neighbor.  There's no exception given for random people who only occasionally cross our paths.  It's important to know what love looks like, and what it doesn't.   For us on Christmas Eve, love looked like an offer to take someone to people who could help, and a refusal to be a chauffeur to help her carry out whatever drama she had going in her life.   

When you kneel at the feet of your Savior, and He asks you "how did you love that polish lady who called you racist?", what sort of answer do you want to have ready to give?  "I didn't seem to be able to do much for her, but I tried to have love for her in my heart" might be one answer.

I appreciate that. 
I'm stressed about it at the moment as I'm not sure if this was a one time burst of emotion, or what is the start of a now ongoing issue for us.