"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." Proverbs 25:11

            I call it my Dirty Light Switch Plate Theory, or alternately, my Banana Bush Theory.  It's that tendency we all have to take more notice of the things people do wrong than the things they do right. Allow me to illustrate.

            When's the last time you noticed a clean light switch plate?  Most likely, the last light switch plate you noticed was one that was smeared with dirty fingerprints.  At least that's how I am with switch plates.

            Now, to tell you about that banana bush.

            A few months before our son John's graduation, we decided that if we were going to host his open house at our home we should take the event as an opportunity to give us a deadline for completing the much-needed remodeling job on our downstairs bathroom.  It was a huge renovation that, due to the room's central location, kept the downstairs cluttered with tools and supplies for several weeks.  My husband is a perfectionist, skilled at using every tool imaginable, and he did a wonderful job, completing the room about a week before the open house.  I was so happy to be able to thoroughly clean the house so I could then concentrate on food preparation.  Mark and the boys turned their attention to mowing and weedwhacking.  We all fell into bed exhausted every night, but when the big day arrived, the house and grounds were in tip-top shape (well, if you don't count the three old barns, which would have taken another five years to repair), the food was abundant, and we were ready to welcome our guests.  The weather even co-operated, giving people a chance to use the outdoor tables and chairs, and the volleyball net the boys had set up. Guests arrived, congratulated John, ate, and chatted with us and each other.  It was great.  And then a friend, one who'd known about all the work we'd put in to get to this day but hadn't said one complimentary word about how nice the bathroom had turned out, or about the food, or about anything or anyone, came up to me and asked, "Why are there banana peels in your bush?"  Well, because John and his brothers were having such a good time feeling like royalty, that they'd sat outside in lawn chairs eating bananas and tossing the peels over their shoulders like kings, which was fine with me.  Let them enjoy the day!  But, really, for that to be the only thing this woman noticed or mentioned?  Really?!  Dirty Light Switch Plate Theory.  Banana Bush Theory.

            At a dinner in Bethany, a woman having an alabaster flask of costly oil of spikenard, broke the flask and poured the fragrant oil on Jesus' head.  You would have thought that such a beautiful, sacrificial act would have been praised by the other dinner guests, but that wasn't the case.

            But there were some who were indignant among themselves, and said, "Why was this fragrant oil wasted?  For it might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and give to the poor."  And they criticized her sharply. Mark 14: 4-5

             Jesus corrected them, explaining that they would always have the poor with them to minister to, but that they wouldn't always have Him with them, and for that reason they should stop troubling her for doing a good work for Him.  And then He said of her,

            She has done what she could.  She has come beforehand to anoint My body for burial.  Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.   Mark 14: 8-9

            Why is it that if Jesus appreciated and called attention to the right action of one woman who had, "done what she could," we don't make that our practice? And I'm one of the worst offenders here, and am definitely asking myself this question! Maybe we don't praise people as much as we should because it's easier to focus on the negative than it is to look for the positive. Maybe it's because we're so used to being criticized ourselves that we, in turn, respond by criticizing others.  Whatever the reason, I think it's time you and I make a conscious effort to look for and call attention to the things our family members and friends are doing right.  Of course we aren't to ignore sin, or give false praise, but I know I'd sure enjoy having a day in which someone said about me, "She has done what she could."  How about you?  Maybe today is the day you and I can make that happen for someone.

Daye Phillippo

July 2010