Private Life

Found here

Watching Frasier tonight, I once again heard a term that fairly rolls off one's tongue: In flagrante delicto. (Pronounced, "in flah-grahn-tay day-lick-toe"). It means, caught in the act. It tends to have a sexual connotation: caught redhanded in questionable moral behavior. I love the scandalous sound to this term. And of course, no one can say it with the level of righteous indignation that Frasier Crane can!

While reflecting on the meaning of this term and the various images it conjures up, I thought about a number of scenarios that our private selves would be loathe to have witnessed: wandering around the house Sunday morning in that raggedly sleep shirt that should have been thrown out a couple years before. Or waiting until company leaves the table to go to the livingroom so you can even off the angle of the cake and have another couple mouthfuls without being scrutinized. Maybe it's the harried scrubbing of the toilet or the indignity of cleaning the litter box. Whatever uncomely activity, it would not be nice to have an audience.

We can easily name these kinds of things that we would not like to have observed. But it strikes me that we might do well to consider the relational things that are observed and the messages we send our kids through our actions toward those we say we love.

I recall a family drive in the mountains one Saturday afternoon in the fall. We found a bunch of berry bushes at the side of the road and stopped to fill our pockets and mouths with the lucious fruit. At some point on the drive home, Sam and I had a disagreement about something. I think he was hungry and felt cranky and I was doing my "I'm stressed out because I'm a stepmother" thing. It was not a happy combination and we sniped at one another. It wasn't anything serious, just an impatient comment from Sam and my hasty rejoinder that I wasn't going to have that conversation. The girls got very quiet and we all rode in silence most of the ride home. I was steamed and so was Sam.

By the time we got to the house, both of us were ready and eager to talk things out. The girls fled upstairs to their rooms and we stood downstairs in the kitchen.

"I don't like when you talk to me in that tone of voice."
"I'm sorry. What you said irritated me."

"It doesn't send a good message to say that in front of the girls."

"I wanted them to see that it's okay to disagree, and to stand up for yourself."

(Long pause). "I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

We can never get through apologies about petty things without a good laugh. Soon we were wrapped tightly in each other's arms kissing, giggling, and being goofy in general. As Sam whirled me around, I noticed a shadow on the wall of the staircase. In flagrante delicto.

A few moments later, Sam went in the other room and I started making dinner.

Brianna was almost immediately at my elbow.

"Do you and dad ever fight, Barbara?"

"Oh sure--well, we don't exactly fight, but we do disagree from time to time."

"What do you do when that happens?"

"Uh...well, you just saw us."

"Yes, but what happens when I'm not around?"

"Pretty much the same thing."

"Is that all? You don't scream at Dad?"

"Do you think he'll hear me better if I do that? --like people who shout at someone who doesn't speak English, so they'll understand it better?"

Ha-ha-ha-ha....we cracked up together. Brianna helped me set the table and went happily up to call the others to the table.

Those who are parents are used to having spectators in the house. But being fairly new to the parenthood game, I was flabbergasted at how much Brianna had seen and heard--not to mention how interested she was in our exchange.She had caught us redhanded in an argument and I was so grateful that she hadn't heard anything that would be hurtful to her or embarassing to us.

Life isn't always like that, however. We haul off and say the most impatient things to those we love--grousing about the little stuff of life as though it had eternal consequences. Some eyes see what we say and how we treat one another. These images are lessons for their lives--we just may be shocked at how our behavior informs their future relationships. These little parts of our private acts live on in the most unexpected ways in our children, students, friends.

This is more than just a call to be nice to one another. It is an invitation to pay attention to those things that others see that we don't pay any attention to: the steady stream of criticism, the lack of warm compliments, failure to express tenderness when it is needed, snide comments or rhetorical questions meant to belittle, emotional withholding. All of these seemingly private in flagrante delicto things leave marks behind in impressionable hearts.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.