This week is the Jewish High Holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
No, I am not Jewish. I actually was raised Catholic. Most of my beliefs now center around some of the more mystical native traditions, with a core belief that there is no heaven to achieve, nor hell to avoid, except that which we create and allow in our life here on Mother Earth.
I attend a local Unitarian Universalist church. I do so because with in my core beliefs also reside the need to *do* something besides think of myself. It revolves around community, giving what you can, and seeing how others might both need from us, and share with us a desire for social justice and a liberal peace. I mean, in my limited view of the meaning of God, a person can not rightly claim a genuine relationship if others are persecuted and marginalized, often at the own believer's hand.
I want my kids to get this, too. It might mean that we do not eat our favorite strawberries if the farm workers that picked them were paid less than a living wage. It might mean we attend the wedding of a same sex couple while the grandparents look away and shamefully shake their heads. It might mean we cook spaghetti, or risk getting arrested, or speak up when a "respected" individual is acting like a bully. All in all, it means action both in our hearts, and in our deeds. Finding a path that is not created by throwing stones in another person's way.
So why mention Yom Kippur?
On Sunday, while thinking I would get a little kick in the spiritual pants with an upbeat sermon on justice or something or other, I got a revelation-kick-in-the-head-god-is-talking-to-you-dumbass moment. Damn it. The topic: forgiving the person who has injured you. Fuck, really? The answer: Yes, because if not, you are just a-smug-little-rat-bastard-who-thinks-she-is-perfect-so-get-the-fuck-out-of-my-way.
Okay, the minister did not actually say that. He was much more polite as he talked about seeking forgiveness in two different ways. If you had injured your own soul, and needed to right it with your own spiritual power, then do so, and move on. But if you have hurt someone else, even by the act of denying them forgiveness, you need to right it with them. A bunch of different examples popped into my head as he talked it through: Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; Steps 8 and 9 in the Big Book; The Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. Yes, strange and varied things spinning their way through my conscience all coming back to the same message. If you don't forgive someone, you carry the burden yourself. If you don't forgive someone, you set yourself up for all the rest of the bad stuff to happen. If you don't forgive someone, you are throwing rocks in their path. If you don't forgive someone, how would you ever be deserving of forgiveness yourself when you mess up. And you know you will. I know I will. Eventually. I always do. Shit. I can only save myself.
So while contemplating my grudges, and realizing my nature of holding forgiveness like some kind of prize, I had actually come to the conclusion that I suck at forgiveness. I don't wanna forgive. I like my little badges of hurt and resentment. I get to be a victim, damn it, I earned it. Be a nasty bitch to me, I get to hate you forever. Make a crude or vile comment to me, and I will not only know when you said it, but know your tone, inflection, and what color shirt you were wearing right then as well. I might go away to lick my wounds, but is only so I have enough strength to come back and hold your nastiness over you at some later date. I mean, it takes a damn strong person to climb that high up on my high-horse.
So if in the recent, or not so recent past, I have done something to hurt you, please forgive me. I am sorry. Let me make amends, and atone to you my desire to change. If I am your target, and you have asked for me to forgive you and I have held it over you instead, I will try to do better, and forgive so that we both have the opportunity to put down our burdens. Don't, at least right now, expect that it means friendship. But please know it means civility and no worsening of your pain, how ever I may have contributed to it.
So I hope you find your own path. I will be over here, trying not to wreck mine, saving the only life I can save. No hell or heaven except that which we create. I will stay out of your journey, with a little bit of atonement for possibly having blocked your way before, and not doing it today.
