August 24
The Difficult Contributor
Someone makes a useful point in an irritating way. They interrupt, repeat themselves, or sound certain that everybody else has missed the obvious. We would welcome the same information from a friend. From this person, we begin looking for a reason to set it aside. Their manner has become a convenient answer to the question they raised.
Respecting participation does not require tolerating every way of behaving. The group can address interruptions and still examine the substance of a concern. Those are separate responsibilities. We may discover that the person who annoyed us noticed something the rest of us missed. Accepting that information need not excuse the manner in which it arrived. It simply keeps our personal dislike from deciding what the group is allowed to learn, a protection we might appreciate when our own delivery is less than graceful.
What useful information might I be discounting because I dislike its messenger?
The point deserves a hearing of its own.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Concepts for World Service, Concepts IV and IX.