From time to time most people have lived with Lilliputians…little people who are bent on keeping others small. You may have met them at church. You may live with a Lilliputian. You may work with one.
They are the people who always insist on being right, or on being the brightest bulb on the tree. They have a deft way of reminding others how they have failed — no matter how much good they may have done. They are better at picking things apart than they are at building them and they are usually skillful with a cutting word — because it takes a lot of cutting to get people down to your level when you are a Lilliputian.
When you live with Lilliputians, the danger is that their mean-spirited way of being will feed your own dark spirit. Gulliver must have really winged at being tied down by thousands of little ropes.
So, it is important to remember the spiritual issues at stake:
Lilliputians are usually insecure.
They control, niggle, criticize, and find-fault as a means of deflecting attention from their own shortcomings.
They need healing. They should search for it. And there may not be anything you can do to contribute to their quest.
But you can resist returning their behavior in kind.
I once talked to a friend about the vicious scape-goating to which he exposed by the Lilliputian to whom he reported.
“How do you stand it?” I asked.
My friend answered, “He is sick, so I am sick.”
Liiliputians spread bitterness, in-fighting, and invective.
Remember you are loved.
Remember that God gave you the gifts that you possess.
Remember that in returning invective for invective you are made small.
If necessary, move on.
But whatever you do, don’t let the little people get you down.
What do you mean “your own dark spirit?”
Angie, sorry for the delay in responding. I have been spending time with Ignatian spiritual directors lately and that phrase slips into my language now and then. I think I am right in saying that what they mean is the work of Satan or the work of that which is opposed to God in your life. (It’s cast the one way or the other, depending upon some other assumptions you might make, i.e., is Satan or evil somehow “personal” — identifiable with a being, or when we talk about Satan are we thinking about the absence of the goodness of God. So, when the words “your own” are used, Ignatian directors are trying to alert directees to the ways in which they may not be responding to God. Make sense? Thanks for asking.