On Fish and Forgiveness

I have a book signing Friday night in a local mall bookstore. Copies of Living Between the Ditches: When God Makes No Sense will be stacked neatly on a table. I hope it goes better than my first signing (see “Signatures and Statues” from the June, 2009, archives). Like most authors on these occasions, I will smile when browsers look at me as though I were a fish in an aquarium and then walk away.

“Wait,” I will want to yell after them. “Do you know I spent three years of my life writing this book? Do you know how many edits each chapter went through? I’ve poured my life into this paperback you’ve so casually dismissed! Come back here!”

Disrespect. Don’t you just hate it when something you value gets “dissed?” We all have hot buttons that easily get pushed, whether it’s about politics, religion, vocations (Did you hear the one about the only lawyer in heaven …), race or ethnicity—the list goes on. There’s a saying, “The older you get, the fewer people you have to respect.”

Some of our touchiness can be blamed simply on pride. We hate to appear fallible or clumsy or uninformed. Layton, the main character in my book, doesn’t want to admit that his assumptions about his ex-wife might be flawed. Amy, for her part, can’t seem to find a way to ask for forgiveness.

Asking for forgiveness takes a certain amount of humility. But so does accepting someone’s apology. We must give up the right to hurt feelings, holding the matter over his or her head, using it for ammunition in future conflicts, or feeling sorry for ourselves. Layton is so accustomed to all of these devices and defenses, he hardly knows what he would do without them.

What about you? Do you easily forgive a sincere apology? Read about what it took to bring Layton to that point. And if you’re looking for my book, catch me in the mall. I’ll be the purple fish with yellow stripes smiling back at you.

Keep living between the ditches!