Heroes, Villains, and the Parking Meter Lady
I was having a morning. You know, one of those mornings.The type where you wake up early after having been up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours with your baby. The kind where you wake up groggy and grumpy and don’t handle things rationally. Where you wake up on the wrong side of the bed.That kind of morning.
That morning I decided to take the kids to the library because we needed to return some books. It also seemed like a good diversion. We loaded the stroller, fed the meter, set my parking meter timer on the phone, and went in. We checked out our books and still had four minutes left on my parking meter timer. Things were good.
But there’s always a snafu, right? Lucy had to go potty. She couldn’t wait, despite my attempts to persuade her to wait until home. No big deal, we still had a few minutes before the meter expired. So we went to the potty and as we were drying our hands, my timer went off. No biggie. We rushed out to the car (as fast as we could reasonably go with a stroller, bag of books, and a 3 year old).
The Parking Meter Lady
I thought we’d be ok because we were, after all, only two minutes (maybe three) late. But, the Parking Meter Lady had already written a ticket and was placing it on my car when we arrived. In my distress, I told her we had only been a couple minutes late. She told me she didn’t know if I had been two minutes late or two hours, left the ticket, and walked away without another word or glance.
On any normal day, I would’ve been irritated but would have carried on. On this day, I was irate. I was on the verge of tears, she called me a liar after all, and I was already struggling! Couldn’t she see that? I stormed around, I grumbled, I got the kids in the car, slammed the trunk shut (hoping that the lady could hear me). In the process I scared Lucy, who had done absolutely nothing wrong.
When the Parking Meter Lady walked back past our car, I shouted, “My daughter had to pee, that’s why we were late!” Good one, Maggie, that’ll show her! After all, I wanted her to understand I wasn’t a liar.
Later that Day…
I proceeded to fixate on it ALL DAY. Obviously she was in the wrong. I though about all the mean things I could’ve said or done, I thought about how I wished she would’ve handled the situation, I thought about how to show her she was wrong. Do you get the idea? I was mad. Not one of my finest moments.
But here’s the problem. As much as I wanted to make myself the hero and her the villain of this story, she wasn’t. Sure, she could have refrained from calling me a liar, but Parking Meter Lady was doing her job. If you look at the bare facts, I was in the wrong. I was late. Our meter expired.
Consider a different perspective
Rarely are things as simple as assuming everyone else is the villain, although that may be the easy way out. Stories always have multiple perspectives. She became the villain in my story, and maybe she went home that night and made me the villain. Was I was just another crazy lady she encountered in her job? Or maybe she didn’t think twice about it.
But what if I had changed my perspective, not making myself the hero? I, perhaps, may have had the space of mind to smile and wish her a good day. I may have assumed she was being honest about not having seen my meter expire (because I was sure she knew I was only two minutes late). I may have assumed that she may get yelled at all the time by people who are downright mean and are actually lying to her.
She, perhaps, may had said, oh, I believe you, but I can’t cancel the ticket I just wrote. Or would she have at least recognized the obvious struggle of having two kids and a much-too-heavy bag of books on my free shoulder while trying to race back to the car before getting a ticket? Perhaps.
Compassion and understanding go an awfully long way in today’s world. I imagine how my day might have changed if I had stepped outside of my self absorbed bubble and accepted the consequences of an ill-timed potty break, sparing parking-meter-lady the encounter with this grumpy mom.
Heroes and Villains
And then imagine if we were to carry this over to so many encounters we have, whether they be online, in person, in traffic, or at work. How have you had encounters where you make yourself the hero of your story without considering the perspective of the villain you are seeking to defeat?
- Perhaps that mom with a screaming 3 year old who is laying on the ground at the exit of the River Museum isn’t totally incompetent and out of control. Maybe she just forgot to bring a snack for her now hangry kid who desperately needs a quick afternoon nap. Maybe that was me last week.
- Perhaps that student at school who is acting out and being disrespectful had a terrible morning at home. Consider that they might be desperately in need of kind words and an extra dose of compassion.
- Perhaps you feel hatred an anger towards the unvaccinated, maybe you need to consider a story in which they aren’t the villain. Or maybe you feel the opposite, you feel hatred and anger toward the vaccinated, maybe you also need to consider a story in which they aren’t the villain. Can you consider what place each of these groups are coming from?
- Perhaps that stranger who feels the need to offer unsolicited advice or unkind words needs to be given the benefit of the doubt. Consider that just maybe they need kind words from you more than you could imagine.
- Perhaps that coworker who just made a decision that negatively impacts you isn’t actually trying to make your life harder. Maybe they are actually doing the best they can.
Love Your Neighbor
When we can stop making ourselves the hero of every story, we can come to a place of deeper regard and love for our neighbor. Because, if I’m the hero of every story, someone is inevitably going to become the villain. And let’s be honest, whenever we watch a superhero movie, what do we do when the villain is defeated? We cheer at their destruction.
This doesn’t work in the real world. Nor is it compatible with the command of Jesus to love your neighbor. We have to love and support one another, we must consider another perspective. We don’t have to agree with everyone, but we do need to love them, that’s not optional. Imagine how different our world would be if we could do this.
I can’t help but think of the parable of the good Samaritan. A man was beaten by robbers and left to die. The men of God, the priest and Levite, who I would suppose to be the ones to help the man, walked by without so much as stopping to see if the man was still alive, so as to preserve their purity in the eyes of the law. After all, they were prohibited from touching the corpse of anyone but a family member (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, 129). But the Samaritan, considered unclean and an enemy to the Jews, was the one to stop and care for the man left for dead, paying whatever necessary for his care.
The Samaritan man was the one who may have had a reason to walk by without stopping to help. The Jews and the Samaritans hated one another. But this man knew what it meant to love your neighbor. He didn’t villainize anyone, even though it would have been easy for him to do so.
For prayer & reflection
In today’s world, loving your neighbor is so hard, there are so many polarizing events and topics at every turn. So please take some time to pray with this.
- Try Lectio Divina or Ignatian Prayer with Luke 10:29-37
- Sometimes it’s a habit that we tend to villainize others that wrong or offend us. Pray about this. Why is that a natural disposition for you? Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the root of this tendency. When did it begin?
- Sometimes there are specific people in our lives that we tend to villainize. Who are those people? I find in my own life that those people have wronged me in some way and I hold unforgiveness toward them. Pray over those people. What do you need to forgive? What do you need to let go of? Sit with this in silence. Give it time. This can be particularly difficult.
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