By Maria Sermersheim
Meditatione Ignis
I have recently discovered that Frenchmen in the U.S. tend to make fun of each other for their heavy French accents when speaking English … and I find that hilarious. They hope to speak English as perfectly as possible, hoping even to assimilate the American accent and to abandon their French one. This seems to be a shared French ideal, seeing such language and accent acquisition as a highly desirable good, so their countrymen share that goal, and they hold each other to the same high standard. When Frenchmen make French friends in the U.S., then, they playfully critique each other’s bad accents to their American friends … all the while being deaf to their own very strong accents! This comical situation, a man with a thick French accent making fun of his friend’s thick French accent, testifies to his inability to hear himself.
On a similar note of lack of personal awareness, a friend of mine was recently frustrated to discover that he interrupts others, because he has a pretty firm opinion that people should not interrupt others so often — but apparently, he interrupts people without even realizing it. He did not discover this tendency in himself until he began to criticize the habit in others, and a friend then observed that he was often guilty of the same thing.
These scenes, one quite comical and the other quite relatable, I think, provide a good Lenten reflection for us. These situations give us another point of access to the metaphor Jesus uses in the Gospel to describe attempting to remove the splinter in our brother’s eye when we are blind to the planks in our own eyes (Matthew 7:5). In the scenarios above, the stakes seem a bit lower (having a strong accent is not a sin), and the recognition of a personal habit through a friend’s observation is easier to imagine experiencing in daily life. In fact, I am sure we have all gained some insight into ourselves through others’ comments, whether well-intentioned or not.
So as Lent commences, may these comical and commonplace scenes provide grounds for some self-examination. Instead of accents, what attitudes do I playfully criticize in my friends that perhaps I adopt myself? What habits do I disapprove of in others, of which perhaps I, also, am guilty? We often need friends to help us see ourselves more clearly; and the Holy Spirit is surely the best friend for such a task, for “the Spirit scrutinizes the depths, even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10). We are too comfortable in our own skin to recognize our own attitudes or habits. Let us invite the Spirit to scrutinize us, to critique us as a friend, and to strengthen us with grace this Lent to grow in self-discipline and love.