If you Google benign neglect, entries appear across a wide spectrum, from policy to parenting.
The phrase itself is entered into an online dictionary.
But neglect is anything but benign.
In any important relationship, between spouses, friends, or co-workers, neglect has a price to pay.
Neglect means one has chosen to not pay attention to that which needs exactly that--one's attention.
It is, in fact, arrogant and malignant because it leads to decay of the relationship.
Neglect has feet. It walks away from someone who needs attention, putting sometimes unrecoverable distance between two people, then whines about what it has lost.
Perhaps most significantly, it reflects the opposite of God's nature in a relationship, for He is attentive, loving and always present.
May our feet dust off the temptation to neglect.
