2019 saw the demise of grumpy cat, (an internet sensation), but not the demise of grumpiness. Have you noticed how the current UK climate (economic, political, social) is making people a bit grumpy?
Being grumpy is a privilege of old age. It’s the inevitable result of experience. When you’ve been ‘around the block’ a few times and seen people doing the same old things, but for some inexplicable reason, expecting different results*, then I think you have a right to be a bit ‘grumpy’.
Let’s face it, there’s a lot to be grumpy about right now. Politics, climate change, the Middle East. I have a friend who recently confessed to being noticeably more irritable the more he heard about ‘Brexit’. And that’s just the world of the media. What about your own private world? Some of you will be slowly transforming into ‘scrooge’ as another ‘commercially driven’ Christmas looms its ugly head on the horizon. HUMBUG!
I want to defend grumpy. To be grumpy is to be tired, annoyed and irritated. To be honest the world needs a few more people who’ve ‘had enough’ of the craziness in our government, our country or our family. I think there’s something worse than grumpy, and that’s apathy.
The danger, of course with grumpy is that you just moan a lot about stuff. You don’t actually do anything (except make everyone else around you grumpy). That’s not the sort of grumpy I want to advocate. I want to champion a sort of ‘holy grumpiness’. It’s the sort of grumpiness that pushed Moses over the edge. From being a spoilt and privileged member of Pharaoh’s household, he became a revolutionary when he witnessed what was going on beyond his palace doorstep (Exodus 2:11).
“One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labour. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.”
There’s a form of ‘holy grumpiness’ that makes you do something about what’s irritating you. It’s a higher form of ‘grumpiness’ that our world needs. So here’s my suggestion to those of you who are convinced that the world is as mad as a bag of frogs and enjoys telling everyone about it. Channel you inner grumpiness. Get grumpy about something that really matters. Get involved in a cause. Join a movement, an organisation or a charity that is concerned to do more than just moan. Enter that higher form of ‘holy grumpiness’ that is willing to give, act or do something to make the world a better place for all of us. It’s what God did when he looked down on the mess we’d made of his world. He hired some professional moaners (they were called prophets in those days), but when that didn’t work, he decided to act. So should we.
– Phil.
(*apparently, this is a definition of insanity).
