A new alert popped up in the iTunes store recently, from which I infer that buyers must come looking for a fix after they blow away or otherwise lose their music folders.
It’s an understandable exercise in wishful thinking: "I forgot to refrigerate my milk and I’ve come back so you can replace it." The argument sounds so convincing in one’s head that it’s hardly obvious how ridiculous it is until the thought is mixed with oxygen on the palate. By which time it is too late; making one long for the rich solitude of space where no can hear you scream – or say dumb things.
The dumb thing having been uttered, I suppose it is the look on the clerk’s face (or the tone of the service rep’s reply) that can cause even nice, typically reasonable people to puff up to twice their normal size and demand redress: "YOU SOLD ME THE MILK!" as if to say everyone knows milk is the sole responsibility of the seller right through the digestive cycle. This too makes quite a bit more sense in the brain — prior to oxygenation.
What happens next is unfortunate, for this is when many complainants ignore the quite sensible thought that one sure way to prevent oxygen from spoiling a pristine thought is to keep their pie hole shut. Failing that test, what comes out the offending orifice is sarcasm, insult, meanness . . . I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t been on one or the other – if not both – sides of a dehumanizing exchange over what amounts to spilt milk.
Learning to keep it shut is not as simple as it sounds – at least not for me. Against natural law, spilt milk can burst into flames when subjected to the heat of loss and humiliation. I hate to admit some of the things that ignite anger in me because, as the Chicago journalist Sydney Harris is supposed to have said, "If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?" I’m afraid it does.
It’s only fair to note that in the currency of iTunes – 99 cents a song – I have well over $10,000 tied up in music. I’ve ripped hundreds of my compact discs to iTunes; the rest I purchased online (or downloaded as promotions at the iTunes Store and Salon.com). I don’t see anything trivial about ten grand; it would be a very bad day if I lost my music. So I’m sympathetic to anyone who suffers that kind of loss, even if he caused it himself, or permitted it by failing to back up his files.
Still I have to admit anger – much of it petty – fogs my mind, clogs my ears and loosens my tongue way too often.
"Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry," James advises, "for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires" (James 1:19, 20 New International Version). These are hard words for a person like me . . . so hard I couldn’t write what I really mean: These are hard words for me – not merely a person like me.
The hope that keeps me running in the face of this failure is a quiet conviction that God is not angry with me – not angry with us. Due respect to the great Jonathan Edwards, I don’t believe we are sinners in the hands of an angry God; I believe we are sinners in the hands of a merciful Savior who – copping a line from Ann Lamott – loves us exactly the way we are; and far too much to leave us that way. That’s the hope that makes me want to apologize when I go off on someone; makes me want to amend my way of life; makes me want to hold my tongue and listen for meaning; makes me want to manage my words as carefully as I manage my iTunes library.
