Choices

"When you make love to a woman, you get revenge for all the things that defeated you in life."

-Ben Kingsley's character in Elegy.

When I saw this movie recently, the above line made me cringe. "Getting revenge?" while "making love?" Frankly....it didn't set well with me.

But after thinking about it a while, maybe it means something different. Maybe it means, that no matter how bad it's been, you get to experience "this" amazing thing, and it somehow dilutes all the awful stuff you've endured in life.
~
I was walking the other day, and a landscaping guy up the street turned on his damn blower. The sound crashed into my peaceful walk. I felt irritated, but I didn't want to feel irritated. It went like this:

Let's work this through.

Can you think of a way this sound might not be so unpleasant?

Hmmm....step, step, step, step.

Well, if I were the worker, and my livelihood depended on the damn blower, and I couldn't get it started, and then suddenly, after several tries, it came on for me, I would be happy. I could finish my work. I could pay my bills and feed my family. It would be a good sound.

The noise no longer bothered me. I was past it by then anyway.

Good noise/bad noise. Take offense, or don't. It's all in how I choose to look at things. I always have a choice.

Amen.