I used to work in the Banking industry. For a while I worked in the bad bank. Did you know there is a good bank and a bad bank? The good bank is the one you see everyday, smiling, nice, polite, taking in money and giving it out. The bad bank is different. This is the bank where that goes out and gets the money back. In the bad bank no one is nice to customers, or smiling, or polite. No one wants to visit the bad bank, and very few want to work there. In the bad bank we had term for a letter, we called it the ‘Drop Dead’ letter. When we received a proposal to repay a loan - usually substantially less than what was owed - we would send a terse, legally correct reply. If the customer considered what this formalized document really meant, he/she would quickly realize they were being told to drop dead. Thus the name.
Now when I was a younger lad telling someone to drop dead was almost a daily occurrence. That or some other clever expletive was just part of the normal way my friends and I communicated. But now that I am a little older and slightly wiser I wish to find a better way to communicate. What I really want to do is to learn how to tell someone that I disagree with him/her - that I think they are wrong - and do it in a way that is loving and kind. I’d like to be able to correct a wayward friend in a fashion similar to the way Jesus conducted himself while he resided on our world. And I’d like to do this without delivering to my friend a drop dead letter.
In the Urantia Book on (1875.3) it says that Jesus was successfully able to tell people they were wrong in a loving way. I find this amazing and I would like to learn the secret of “being severe” without being mean. A great story that I have found helpful is the one called The Young Man who was Afraid found on (1437.2). Jesus engages a man who was hiding from his fears in the hills of Crete by asking him for help. He then attempts to engage him with a positive uplifting message. But the young man falls on his knees and begs Jesus for help. The last paragraph on the page is amazing. In it Jesus says these things to the man: Stand up like a man!; it (his body) is just about useless while you sit out here on the mountainside and grieve over your misfortunes; You are trying to run away from your unhappy self, but it cannot be done. All statements designed to shock and awaken this man from his fearful existence. Contrasting these severe statements, the majority of Jesus’ words are positive and uplifting. The type of language we would normally expect from the master. And like this story there are many other stories in which Jesus was tough on the people around him, and shocked them with his aggressive criticisms. And yet he always made a plea for a positive response to his words. He always focused on the uplifting message he had come to deliver. Jesus attempts to change every negative situation into a positive one.
And I guess that is the key. Facing up to the negatives within and around us and trying to change them into positives. Jesus didn’t run away from conflict, he embraced it as a way to move towards positive change. The young man in Crete is a great example of Jesus laying bare the faults and mistakes of the man, but not dwelling on them. Instead, Jesus spends most of his time showing the man the path to a brighter future. Jesus uses the man’s problems as a spring board to higher realities. This is great stuff, and I aspire to this level of love and courage in my dealings with the people around me.
I would like to approach every situation I face with a positive outlook and the goal to help the people I meet. But I can still react badly, with anger and resentment. With God’s help I believe that some day I will be more like the master and less likely to tell someone to drop dead.
God Bless You,
William Whitehead
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