Blooming by my front door this morning.

Melting ice down at the creek yesterday.

The same gentle warm sun that streams through my window has been gently coaxing changes in the neighbourhood. Gentle awakenings. Yes.

I’ve noticed that gentleness is on the list of the fruit of the Spirit and brutal candor is not. Why is that, I wonder. What’s with this frying pan to the face school of prophecy? If Holy Spirit takes the time to melt our hearts with patience and kindness and speaks truth to us in a gentle way that melts away lies we have believed and replaces them with courage to take the risk of blooming, shouldn’t we do the same for each other? Gentleness is not weakness; it is patient power under control.

I read this quote by Stephen Crosby the other day. “If people are going to reject the gospel we carry, let them reject it because they are rejecting a love they cannot process or handle at the moment, not because of an idiot with a Bible and the interpersonal skills of Attila the Hun.”

Yes, there are times, when for the sake of protecting the vulnerable we need to be more blunt and even aggressive, and there are folks for whom subtlety is a faintly detected jet trail flying miles overhead. Jesus spoke gently in powerful parables, but sometimes he confronted religious pseudo-experts directly and plainly, but only when they blocked the path for everyone else. Allowances need to be made, but if smacking people upside the head with words – however true – becomes your go-to means of communication (because you “don’t have time to say this nicely”) and fact-delivery continually trumps loving encouragement, don’t be surprised when your garden of friends in May looks more like a frozen creek in January.

Just sayin’.

(File under: Things I have learned the hard way.)