"Write a letter and... screw it up"

"Too late, it's gone"....When we were getting ready to leave college and head out as young ministers... "God's gift to the church"..... the various lecturers each gave us bits of advice. Our Practical Church Work lecturer, "GR", said that often you will be tempted to write angry letters to people who have done you wrong. He suggested that we ought to write them... pour out our heart and let them know how we feel. But then having expressed how we feel and what we think.... "screw the letter up and don't send it." I was talking to someone a few weeks ago and he was saying how the "new" technology of emails causes problems. Where as once you would write out an angry letter... stew on it, think better about it and screw it up... now we tend to just blast away on the computer, push the send button and ... too late it has gone... there is no retracting it!

I received an email complaining about my wife this week. One of our drop-in centre guys who came to a new venture we have at church did not like my wife limiting the number of cups of coffee he had. This new venture is different from a drop-in, aimed at different people and people wanting a hot drink are asked to give a gold coin donation. He treated it like drop-in and wanted more free stuff. If I was being cruel, I would say he is one of the world's bludgers.  He is, but there are reasons he is the way he is so it is cruel to just write him off like that. Well he sent me an email complaining about my wife's unwelcoming, uncharitable attitude etc. Now it has to be pointed out that my wife spends nearly every waking hour in voluntary service of people in the community. This made me see red, but I replied with what I thought was a nice email explaining that this new venture was different from the drop-in. I explained why my wife may have expressed caution at the number of free (good cona coffee) coffees he was helping himself to and that perhaps if this was not what he wanted, this was not the sort of place to come with the expectations he had. He wrote yet another short angry email. I replied and said in essence, if he did not like what he experienced then he was free not to come, that it was meant to be more like a coffee bar than a drop-in.  Then I got a really angry email back. I was a nasty uncharitable, unsupportive person who was attacking him when I should be apologising for my wife's actions etc. etc. Well I was then angry... I wrote a most descriptive email back to him.... but finger poised on the send button... did not send it, deleted it. I worked away at other stuff for a while and again stewing, composed yet another email... again, so nearly sent it... but fortunately deleted it. When I see him next I may express some thoughts, but I am glad I never sent those two compilations. This new technology demands quicker wisdom.

A second complaint came. A guy who loves to gamble on the horses used to switch the TV at the drop-in to the racing channel and "Turf digest" in hand watch his races. It annoyed others who wanted to watch TV, but also it was not something we wanted to have going at the drop-in where often people have gambling problems anyway. I also know that he involves some younger guys in gambling when they cannot afford it. Well he came to my office to complain. Why can't he watch his horse racing? I told him our policy and he essentially said he would not be back. I said in essence, "That's your choice." He was there last night again, scoffing cups of free soup. After two complaints like this in one week, you wonder why you do it.

Balanced by..... I received two contacts from experienced people working in the community who said they had heard that we were "doing good things for these people and they want to learn about what we were doing." That put balance to my week.