Day 4: Something you have to forgive someone for.
I have not forgotten this little project...just got into some deep thinking about Day 4.
You see, forgiving others has always come much more easily than forgiving myself. I am having a really hard time trying to think of someone I have not forgiven....yes, {believe it or not, big brother who likes to lecture me about our father}, even my ex-father who was so pathetisad he landed his backside in the Big House at the Point of the Mountain.
I have truly wrestled with today's topic. Who do I need to forgive?
I think of a person that maybe I need to forgive...but then I remember that they, too, are human just like me. I cannot see inside their head and so maybe, just maybe their craptastic behavior is linked to their unseen sorrow and pain, just as is mine on occasion. (OK - more occasions than I would like to admit.) And when I start thinking of them in that way...I am not angry at them any more. Sure, I might get hot under the collar for a day or two about something but invariably, the lyrics from a hymn creep into my heart and mind, "Who am I to judge another when I walk imperfectly?"
Forgiveness is about judgment. It's about me judging the behavior of someone else and deeming it less than acceptable and requiring something to mend the brokenness they created in my heart. I know there is a time for righteous judgment and there is a time to call a spade a spade, but even when I cry out for justice, I find myself wishing mercy upon the other person as well. And this fine balance between the desire for justice and mercy...I have found that without one, there is not the other. As Catherine of Siena said, "The pearl of justice is found in the heart of mercy."
My heart has not resided in this Zen-like state my entire life and I do not even know what brought me to this place. All I know is that I like being here much better than I like being in that other place where my life is full of angst over wrongs perpetrated on me by the witting and unwitting alike.
2 comments:
I love the quote from Catherine of Siena. I could learn a lot from that.
Good journeys along that Zen path! I hope I can catch up to you and walk together with you.
Kara -
It's one of those quotes that drifts up from the psyche in quiet moments, begging to be pondered.
Strangely enough, I first came across it on the blog of a woman whom I admire a great deal although she has little but disgust and disregard for me. We used to be friends...maybe someday we can be again.
M.
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