Forgiveness I

I didn't want to go to church today. I helped my son move this weekend, and I woke up sour and angry at his former roommates. The psychotic who slept with Sonny's girlfriend (after lecturing Sonny about not trusting) and then screamed every time he saw Sonny and posted all threats on Live Journal about how he was going to pound that bastard into the ground. I guess Molly Ivins is right; you don't forgive someone you've truly wronged. And where was the landlord? Staying with friends so he wouldn't have to hear it and changing the terms of renting and upping the rent until my son said, "Forget it. I'm moving."

When I realized how much I hate them, I knew I had to go to church, my only chance to lurch out of that mindset. During prayer time, I duly wrote their names down and put them in the prayer box. Not because I wanted to. Because the founder of my faith said to. He didn't say I had to like it or mean it.

As I sat in meditation aftewards, tears ran down my cheeks, and I experienced the sadness of a mother watching her child hurt rather than the "righteous" anger of judgmentment. It hurt, but it was a moving, flowing hurt. I would heal. Sonny would heal. I hate watching a loved one's path. I can accept the pain and struggle of my journey, but I don't want anyone I love to suffer.

As I cried, I remembered that I'd always intended to respond to RL Preacher's story of forgiveness. (We were moving then, so I didn't.) Many people responded, but the discussion quickly turned into a spiritual masturbation on the lines of "How many angels dance on a pin?" as folks tried to decide if they should forgive the devil. I'm sorry, but discussions like that don't take me forward. I have plenty of forgiving to work on with people I can see, like the neighbor with the barking dog, my ex-husband, my stepdaughter, my employer, my husband's former employer, the aforementioned roommates--people who have directly and personally affected my life.

So better late than never, I figure, and I'd never be able to confine my thoughts to the courteous 3 paragraphs. I come from a family of professional unforgivers, and the road out of that has been rocky, twisted, and full of quicksand. A small voice whispered, "Make it a novena!"

A novena is a spiritual discipline carried out for nine days, often associated with saying certain prayers, like the Rosary.

So for 9 days I'm going to write about forgiveness and its antecedent, betrayal. I don't know that I have 9 essays in me, but I guess I'll be given them at the time. Or else repeat myself a lot. I've never seen anyone else write my position on forgiveness, which may just mean that I don't read much. Forgiveness isn't something I do--I've never been able to manage it, except from a sanctimonious, self-deceiving perceptive. What I do is the prayers, the visualizations, the interruptions of thought, restraint from revenge, journaling, rituals for release. And then, at some point, not decided on by me, forgiveness flows through, and that person/institution is released and I no longer invest my energy in What They Did. It's like cleaning out a pipeline so the water can flow. I can scrub the crub out, but I can't make the water flow. And the water can't flow if the pipe is full of scaly resentment. So I have a part; God has a part. One of us has never failed.

9:35:28 PM