"Judgmentally Challenged?"

Judgmentally Challenged?

Is it realistically hopeful to resist the challenge

Not to gall my neighbor after his spoken words

Have appalled my senses, and the beat of my heart

Has been stalled by his calloused behavior?

Or am I being judgmentally challenged*?

Granted, I would have been a fool to have laughed

At my neighbor’s callow endeavors;

Hence my inner being called for me to swallow my pride,

And not give way to a foolishness

That would cause me to sputter back

At his illogically hurled sputtering;

But I did not listen; logic made no sense.

Was he egotistically

Or maniacally raging for a purpose?

Or was his stratospherically designed temper out of control?

Nonetheless, his gallantries were lacking,

But so were mine.

My less than galleried tendencies

Tell me that I am statistically,

But sadly, up to par with the norm;

For few have had the heart

To resist plunging the knife of thralldom

Into another’s malleable ego ~

I found myself no different.

Now, as I watch from afar, his ballistic behavior

Balloon into theatrically performed nonsense,

I watch with repentance, as a victimized neighbor

Responds in patience to the inner wounds

That scream out at the world for help;

For through him, I see a hypothetically designed framework of defense for myself;

A reminder of One who had been given a much worst taste of gall than I…

Could I not have resisted the challenge just that once,

To have been 'out of the norm' so to speak,

And not have hurled insult upon insult

Back at one who was in a judgmentally challenged* state himself,

Screaming for help with a language that only demons could enjoy?

Could I not have resisted the challenge… just that once ~

To have help relieved the anguish of a broken soul;

For the sake of the One who has set the example of resistance before me?

Copyright ‘07 Barbra L.

-judgmentally challenged*; tending to criticize or to question the possible

Glossary ~ Courtesy: Encarta ® World English Dictionary

-challenged; 1. with particular impairment: having a particular impairment 2. lacking in something: lacking in a particular quality (humorous)

-gall; irritate; anger

-appalled; sickened; horrified

-callow; raw; immature

-illogically; irrational

-maniacally; uncontrolled behavior

-stratospherically; very high

-gallantries; courage/courtesy

-galleried; unsophisticated

-thralldom-thrall; domination; being controlled by more power

-malleable; easily influenced

-ballistic; propelling through the air

-hypothetically; assumed for the sake of argument: