Revenge in our hearts?

     I’ve been thinking about comments I’ve heard recently that basically come down to, “Because I’ve suffered, you should too.” Or even, "Because WE'VE suffered, you should too."

“Because I had to take that test in order to get into that job/profession/group/activity other people should have to as well.  If they don’t, it’s not fair!” 

“Because I received corporal punishment as a child, I think this next generation of kids should also have corporal punishment.  It didn’t kill me so it won’t kill them!” 

“Because I had to go through several rigid screenings in order to be part of this group, everyone else should as well.” 

"Because we have been hurt, we need to make other people hurt too."

Recently there was a huge controversy that involved one of the ordination exams that was offered this past year.  A scripture was chosen for those studying to become Presbyterian pastors that they needed to translate from original Hebrew, do an extensive biblical study on, and then create a congregational bible study from that passage.  This is a part of every exegesis ordination exam that every Presbyterian pastor must take to be ordained in our denomination.  The scripture they picked this last year, though, was one that could have been considered deeply traumatic for many.  It was Judges 19 in which a Levite’s concubine was gang-raped, murdered and dismembered.  Survivors of sexual assault were outraged at the insistence that they be required to study and write about this passage and basically called the committee’s choice that they handle such a passage a form of “hazing”.  Without going too far into the controversy, I found it interesting that one of the arguments for continuing with this passage again came back to the “well we had to look at hard passages to become pastors, so they should too.”  The use of the word “hazing” to describe the exam also backs this idea.  Those who are hazed remember what they had to do in order to “join the club” or the fraternity and they feel it is, therefore, only fair that those who follow should also have to suffer as they did. 

While these examples take many forms and have been said in many differing situations, they all come back to that same thing: I suffered, so others should too.

               This is very problematic.  While I have written about this for my congregation, I wanted to say something more about this using words that are not as "churchy" because, while I think this is especially problematic for people of faith, I also believe it is simply problematic just because as human beings, we should be striving to do better.  Every single day there are so many good things that come to us that we did not earn or deserve.  And there are so many gifts that come our way that we can take no credit for at all. On a small scale, how many times have you gone over the speed limit, or failed to use your turn signal but have not been given a ticket?  How many times have you made a mistake such as talking behind someone’s back, exaggerating a story in a way that you knew would be hurtful to those you spoke about, or were cranky with someone you valued in a way that could have ended the relationship, only to have the experience of finding that those mistakes have not led to the terrible consequences which could have followed?  How often have we experienced being forgiven for the harsh words, or loved beyond the mistakes? 

         In the bigger picture, did you do anything that earned you where you were born?  Did you do anything to have been born into a family that had enough resources to feed you, to house you, to educate you?  Did you do anything to deserve classes and lessons and friends and family who have been kind and loving?  Did you do anything to deserve going on family vacations or trips to the park or zoo or circus as a kid?  How many times have you just barely scraped by on an exam or in some other way and experienced others simply being kind because they could be?  

       But as a people we don’t tend to focus or remember the times we've experienced such beauty or kindness or grace nearly as intensely or as often as we focus on and remember what we consider an injustice to ourselves.  And as a result, we fail then to find the gratitude to extend that grace to those around us, but instead insist that because we suffered, others should too.  And while this may be very human, "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."  We need to do better.  We need to focus less on revenge and on the idea that because I have suffered, you should too, and instead choose more often that because I've been gifted in so very many ways in this lifetime, I will extend those gifts and that grace to you as well.  

     We have the power to create a kinder, gentler world.  And it doesn't take much to move from "it's not fair!" to "How can I help?  What can I do to make your world a tiny bit better?"  My hope is that we could all try to move in that direction, one step at a time.

Another very personal self-reflection: on hope

     I was watching MASH yesterday with my son.  He loves MASH and is leaving to return to school on Saturday, so we spent some time last evening watching a few reruns of this wonderful, wise program.  One of the episodes we watched was Dear Sis in which Father Mulcahy is basically narrating some of his time in Korea through the writing of a reflection letter to his sister.  The episode starts with an altercation between a patient who is flailing and being horrible to Margaret, refusing to accept the help of the nurses or anyone else.  Margaret calls for Father Mulcahy's help.  When he tries to help, the patient acts out towards the Father, saying he is not qualified to help or even deal with the patient and he punches the Father, hard.  In an unexpected moment of both self-defense and anger, Father Mulcahy punches the man back!  He then spends much of the episode dealing with that instinctual response.  He apologizes to the man, he tries to explain, but the man is basically a jerk in this episode.  He continues to attack, verbally, the Father, saying he is in no way a holy man and must have gone to seminary at the YMCA.  The patient cannot see his own actions as having been part of the problem, and he has no ability to offer grace or forgiveness.  Father Mulcahy just accepts into himself all the attacks that come from this man.  He leaves the hospital room, goes outside where Hawkeye finds him and the interaction between the two is as follows:

Father: You know, I used to coach boxing at the CYO. I told my boys it built character.

Hawkeye: Father, why don’t you stop punching yourself on the chin.  Pick on someone your own size!

Father: I’m Christ’s representative. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.  Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it.

Hawkeye: All you’re supposed to do is the best you can.

Father: Some "best!"

Hawkeye: Best is best!  Look.  Suppose you were sitting here right now with somebody who had done his best and was feeling lousy about it.  You’d let ‘em off the hook, wouldn’t you?

Father (still reeling in feelings of guilt and shame): Sure I would.  And if the hook didn’t work, I’d probably try an uppercut.

Hawkeye: Father, get off your back.

Father: It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in.

Hawkeye: Look.  This place has made us all nuts.  Why should you be any different?   We don’t sleep. We don’t eat.  And every day a truck dumps a load of bloody bodies at our feet.  Okay so you hit someone.  We have to stand here and watch so much misery we’re lucky we don’t all join hands and walk into a chopper blade.

        I found myself struck deeply by this conversation both from a personal place, but also from a communal place. While we are not living through a literal war, in many ways we ARE living through a metaphoric one.  Our war is against this tiny little virus who has many tricks up its sleeve, and who appears to be using them all.  We are in a constant state of stress, of fear.  Will we be the ones to get it next?  How will it affect our families?  Our loved ones?  Our communities?  We think we see the end of the pandemic, and then something else happens and it goes on with more violence and damage than before.  At this point I think few of us have avoided losing a loved one to this disease.  Even fewer have remained unaffected by the illness.  As Hawkeye said, "We don't sleep.  We don't eat.  And every day a truck dumps a load of bodies at our feet." Holding on to hope right now is difficult.  Everyone remains tense, many are grieving, people are fearful and anxious, and everyone has moments when they are less able to act their best, to be their best.  We are all making mistakes and the results, because during this stress it is difficult to step back or to take things with the ease we otherwise might, are broken relationships, torn communities, and a fractured world.  

    We see this in so many places in our world: deepening anger, acting out, rage, violence.  We also see it, more personally, in the church.  There have been numerous articles written, including one in the Wall Street Journal (article) saying that church communities in general are experiencing a return of only about 50% - 70% of their people because of COVID.  Many of our churches are simply having to close as a result of this loss of membership.  Churches are learning to adapt, but pastors' burn-out level is extraordinary right now.  That, too, seems to be the subject of many articles crossing my desk recently: the mass exodus of pastors from church leadership.

    Why are they leaving?  There are many reasons.  One is that things are simply very stressful.  Pastors are having to learn and even create new ways of doing church during fluctuating, changing situations when we can meet, then can't meet, then can meet again but with differences, with limitations, with restrictions.  We are having to discover or create new ways to connect people and to stay connected to our people.  These new learnings take time and energy and most of us were already working more than full time at our jobs.  We are navigating a new world, one that changes monthly if not weekly and sometimes even by the day.  This is hard and we don't know where the next change will come, where we will need to adapt next.  Our congregants struggle with these changes too, so not only are we carrying our own stress, our own need to roll with the punches, but we are also called on, constantly, to be the face and voice of calm assurance, of hope, and of promise for our members.  We are called on to navigate the conflicts that are arising as we try to sort through these changes: some want masks, others don't.  Some are pro-vaccine, others aren't.  Some say we open to all, regardless; others say we need to limit who and how people can attend.  Not only do we need to be making these decisions, but we need to be reassuring and comforting those who would have wished we'd made different choices.  That in itself is exhausting.  Add to this that members are acting out their own fear, stress and anger by attacking those in leadership positions.  Pastors are easy targets and are receiving more than their fair-share of blame and anger.  

    But I think the story above about Father Mulcahy points to another reason why pastors are leaving.  We are not immune to the stress of this situation.  And we are not perfect.  I've written before about the unrealistic expectations that people have for their pastors, so I won't go into the details of this here again.  But the bottom line is we aren't more than human.  We are human.  In the Presbyterian church we recognize that pastors are not even more "holy" than other people.  All of us, every single person on this planet, has a call, and for all of us that call includes learning to be more loving, forgiving and gracious.  As Jesus said, "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  We are all on a learning curve, on a path of growth.  And that means all of us will fall, will stumble, will make mistakes.  But the expectations for pastors remain very high.  When you combine huge levels of stress with the expectations that we will somehow be better, navigate the struggles better, walk through this terrible time with more grace, more patience, more wisdom and insight than everyone else, the reality is that we will disappoint people.  We will make mistakes.  We will, at times, fail.  And when we fail, it is not just our parishioners who struggle to forgive us.  We struggle, deeply, to forgive ourselves.  As Father Mulcahy said, "Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it."  But sometimes in stress when someone hits us, we won't be able to step back and respond with grace.  Sometimes we will, instinctively and without thought, punch back.  And when our apologies are not "enough"?  When they are not accepted?  When, like Father Mulcahy, we are sneered at, accused of being "fakes" and told that we are simply horrible at what we do?  Well, we have a hard time not taking those comments in.  

       And then it goes even deeper.  Again, as Father Mulcahy said, "It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in."  There are times when it is hard to see that what we do makes a positive difference, especially in a time when affirmation is little and far between, and when the world around us continues to crumble, to tear, to struggle, no matter how hard we work.  We remember every time we have made a mistake.  We remember, with a voice that yells in our heads pretty constantly, every time we should have responded differently, should have seen things we didn't, should have acted when we failed to do so, should have, would have, could have...  It is hard, at times, to avoid focusing solely on the things we should have done and the things we shouldn't have done and to instead see any good we might have done.  It is hard, in these times, to hold on to a sense of purpose, of meaning, and most especially, of hope.

    I am grateful that when I have hit those lows, I feel that God has, every single time, stepped up and stepped in with reassurance and grace for me.  This weekend I hit one of those bottoms where my very career was in question for me once again.  It doesn't help that a member in my household is going  through the usual pastor's-kid, teenage rebellion thing and is telling me, with some regularity, that religion causes nothing but damage and that my job not only does no good, but is actually harmful to the world.  While I have my own arguments against this, it still hits hard and I do sit with their words, wondering how much is true.  Additionally, I'm coming off a very challenging month where we were struggling with family health crises and the demands on my time between family needs and my job during Advent and Christmas were frankly too much.  I was, like Father Mulcahy, very much in the "I don't seem to make a difference here... And when I do step in, I just seem to make mistakes" mentality.

      But three things happened for me, right in a row, all converging at the same time.  The first was seeing the MASH episode where Father Mulcahy's words resonated so deeply with my own feelings.  Seeing his struggle when the character does so much good in the series was a gift and reminder that we can't always see the good we do, we are simply called to do the best we can and trust that God will take our best and infuse it with grace.  Not everyone will be able to forgive our errors: the soldier in the MASH episode never did forgive Father Mulcahy.  But, as we know, that lack of forgiveness hurts the one hanging onto the grudge most of all.  That is a choice another can make.  One we cannot change.  All we can do is be aware of our own errors, apologize, and do our best not to repeat them. 

    The second thing that happened for me was that an individual took the time to tell me that something I had said to her had been life-changing and had put her on a different path forward, one with hope, joy and amazing possibility.  Without betraying this individual's confidence or situation, I see the change.  And I am grateful to have been allowed to be part of that.  

    The third thing that happened needs a little more explanation.  I've been feeling strongly that the most important part of my job right now has been and continues to be giving hope.  Even when I have not felt it myself, I have felt deeply called, impelled even, to be the bearer of hope during this time of extreme stress, confusion and pain.  In every bible study, every meeting of our anti-racism group, and in many of our committees and small group meetings, then, my voice has been the voice trumpeting hope in the face of anger, pain and despair.  That has been my job and my call for this last year and a half.  As times have darkened, I have felt this even more strongly.  Recently, then, I added into our worship services a "moment of hope" where I share a positive story, a story of someone doing good, being kind, making a beautiful difference, even in the face of these difficult and painful times.  Again, I feel the deep importance of being that voice of hope, even when I cannot summon it for myself.  With that back-drop in mind, every epiphany we do an exercise at my church where we pass out paper stars that have spiritual disciplines and gifts written on them.  No two stars are the same each year, and each person picks one out of a basket.  Out of all of the stars that I could have chosen, the one that I picked, the one that came to me, was "hope."  While I usually am a bit of a cynic when it comes to the chance that a word would come to each person that was exactly the right word at exactly the right time, I felt an electric shock run through me when I saw that word on my star.  Yes, my focus and my call has been centered on hope.  And that star was a reminder that that hope is there for me as well: offered to me, even when I am struggling, and even when I cannot see if what I do makes any difference at all.  The star was a both a reminder of my call right now, and a promise that hope is there for me, too.

    I would wish the same for all of you: that you would find and hold hope during this very difficult, very challenging time.  Practice kindness. And look for where God is: where there is light, joy, love, grace, forgiveness, mercy, and, above all, hope.

The Assumptions We Make About Others Say More About Us

        I've said many times before that the things we attack in others are usually parts of our own shadow side: that part of ourselves that we cannot face we project outwards and seek to destroy in the other.  But to take this a step further, the assumptions we make about others also reflect much more on ourselves than they ever do about those our assumptions target or encompass.  We therefore betray our own worst selves with our assumptions.  

        I found myself reflecting on this more strongly yesterday.  My health insurance offers classes that you can take to reduce your co-pay and I'd taken one of their classes which happened to focus on forgiveness.  There were MANY wonderful suggestions about how to forgive in this class, but the one that I felt was most helpful and most profound still surfaces from time to time.  We were told to write down the story or scenario that was causing us to feel resentment, anger or any other long-held emotional baggage.  We were then to highlight or underline everything that we had stated as fact in our story.  Then, we were to take a huge step back and ask ourselves honestly, looking at each "fact", “Do I actually know this for sure?  Is this really a fact or is it my perception?”  If it was just a perception or if it was based on assumptions, we were to cross it off, and then write on a separate piece of paper what we know to be actually facts – the things that we know to be absolutely true.  So any motivations we assign to the other, any thoughts of the other, any feelings of the other - all of these we would have to cross out as things we could never actually know.  Any conversations that we "heard" about but weren't actually privy to, any stories we were told but didn't actually experience: all of these we would have to cross out.  Any assumptions we made about why things happened would have to go.  The only things that would be left would be just the facts of behaviors, what happened, what was said TO US.  Our assumptions even about what those words "actually meant" would also need to be crossed out.  Our interpretations of what was actually meant would have to be crossed out.  Then we were to write on a separate paper only those things then that were really facts.  And finally we were to get rid of the original story: burn it, shred it, whatever it takes.  

    This exercise is amazing and I would encourage each of you to try it.  

    In my own life, I recently found myself repeatedly having a conversation in my head with someone whom I had come to believe was intentionally hurting me.  What was ironic is that in this "conversation" she was making all sorts of assumptions about me that weren't true.  And I found myself becoming more and more upset about these assumptions she was making about me in my head.  (sigh).  Again, we can be our own worst enemies: and again putting out there onto other people what we are doing ourselves is oh-so-common a theme.  So I stopped.  And realized that I was getting upset because of assumptions that I was making.  I was assuming that she was assuming things that were just not true.  (As if that isn't confusing enough).  Thank you, God, for reminding me of this practice and also encouraging me, always, to look deeper at what my own assumptions had to tell me about myself (NOT about the other person!).

    My own assumptions spoke to me of my fear: fear of being misunderstood, fear of not being given the benefit of the doubt, fear of never being forgiven for being the human me that I am, fear of always being a disappointment and never being enough.  Once I was able to dig down that deep, I was also able to remind myself that I don't believe God calls us to be perfect.  We are just called to be who we are, and to strive to grow in love, compassion and the ability to offer grace to others.  That's all we can do.  That's all we can be.  I believe God cares more about our efforts to be kind than about being "right", and God certainly cares more about out intentions to be loving than about our efforts to be perfect.  And THAT reminder has allowed me to let go of the assumptions that have been fueling this imagined and internal conversation with this other person.

    I don't know what has led to the behaviors of the other that caused me pain.  Until the other chooses to talk to me about it, I can't know.  I am going to stop trying to guess, stop trying to make assumptions that I can't validate or check out.  I will rest in the grace of God and stop trying to guess about someone else's thinking.  That's the best I can do for now.  

    I encourage you all to likewise put aside assumptions.  The practice of discerning what is a "guess" and what is a fact is an amazing practice.  I wonder if more of us did this what we might be able to accomplish in the world in terms of peace-making, reconciliation and healing.  Until we try it, we will never know.

If a certain category of people are always a problem for you, perhaps the problem is you.

          I found myself today remembering a kid I grew up with who had trouble in school every year.  Every single year the mantra was, "My teacher is mean to me."  "My teacher doesn't listen."  "My teacher doesn't care."  Eventually, he decided that all teachers were just unfeeling, un-listening, uncaring people.  His parents supported this attitude.  I remember often seeing them on campus, headed in to talk to teachers, to the principal, to administrators.  While as a child I was rarely privy to these conversations, I can remember coming in from recess one day in time to hear the parents shrieking at the teacher with whom they had been meeting that "All teachers at this school have it in for our child!"  I was in 6th grade at that point: old enough to realize that all his teachers probably had had conversations about this boy.  I was able to suppose that those conversations probably did set each one up at some level to be predisposed to see the worst in him. I wondered if any of them had given him a fair chance.  I wondered if they didn't begin by being impatient and a little stern with him from the get-go based on what they already "knew" of the boy. 

         As a kid myself, I don't remember being able to expand my thinking too much beyond that.  It didn't, for example, occur to me to remember that this boy was not just difficult in the classroom but out at recess, too.  Nor did I remember that he was a person all the rest of us kids avoided at any cost because he was mean and demanding, loud and pushy.   

         It also didn't occur to me to realize that I'd had many of the same teachers that this boy had had and that my experience of them towards myself had been consistently positive.  I wasn't able to have a wide enough vision to see that the common denominator in all of these interactions was the boy, not the individual teachers.  But then, I was a kid, and I identified more strongly with other children.  The school understood the situation better.  But again, because of previous interactions with the boy, I am certain the teachers as well as the administrators did approach this child with at least a little un-ease, and no doubt each year a pre-conceived idea of who he was, a bias.  In every interaction there are at least two people.  Therefore when there is conflict, when there are problems, at least two people have a part in those problems.  Sometimes the responsibility is more heavily weighted towards one side or the other, but where there is human interaction, both sides have at least a little culpability.  So, I'm certain the teachers were not completely blameless in this situation.  This kid obviously had problems and approaching him as someone in need of help rather than as just a problem to be dealt with might have changed the dynamic immensely.  But I write from the place of knowing I was a kid at the time, not privy to the exchanges of the adults, and certainly not knowledgeable about what had been tried, or what even could have been done.  I also know that we've come a long way in understanding the challenges our kids face and in finding appropriate ways to deal with them.  Resources exist now that simply weren't available when I was young.  It's easy to be condemning of the past and fail to remember that time has taught us some things.

        But my point here is that it was not easy for the parents or the child to see that if the kid was the one having an issue with all of these teachers, while other children were not having issues with all of these teachers, that chances were good that the kid contributed something to the problem.  They were so busy attacking and categorizing "all teachers" as uncaring, unfeeling, and unkind that they could use this label "teacher" to divide the world into the good and bad, with "teacher" being on the bad side.  Just as the teachers probably approached this kid with some preconceived ideas, this boy and his family approached "teacher" with a lot of preconceived ideas.  

        They all came with their tunnel vision to the conversations.  And while it was probably easy for an entire school to band together in mutual condemnation of this boy and his family, it was also amazingly easy for the boy and his parents to band together in a conviction that it was "all the teachers" in the school that were at fault.  From that place, there wasn't going to be a whole lot of movement on either side towards reconciliation, healing, change or growth.  There just wasn't.  

      Condemnation is easy.  Labeling is easy.  Deciding that one side is wrong/bad and the other side right/good makes the world neat and tidy.  In this scenario, I know who my friends are and I know who my enemies are.  I know what to think and believe.  I know who to trust and who to fear.  I know where to place my anger and my disappointment with the world, and I know where to look for salvation and hope.  I know who to convict and who to redeem, and I know that to be loyal means to choose the clear-cut side I've come to believe is always the right side.

      Oh, if only that matched reality in any way!

      The truth is so much more complicated.  But truth is very, very hard.  No one of us will EVER have a complete grasp of truth, because truth includes everyone's experiences, and opinions and feelings.  We will never have everyone's experiences and opinions and feelings so none of us will ever grasp the full truth.  Truth is also hard because it involves seeing that everyone has good gifts, and everyone has faults.  Everyone does some things right, and everyone makes mistakes, whether they are able to see them or not.  The best any of us can do is to keep trying to do better.  The best any of us can do is to keep searching for genuine understanding.  But let me just say the obvious here:

      Genuine understanding is not easy.  And it is far too easy for us to avoid seeking it.  If we were to seek genuine understanding, we'd have to expand our views.  If we were to strive to listen to the other side, or to engage those with whom we are angry, we might have to change.  If we were to open our eyes to a bigger vision that goes beyond us and them, black and white, my side and your side, we might have to face the reality that we aren't always right, or good.  And we might have to admit that we have not always been just to people who have deserved to be treated better.  

      This seems like such a hardship for most humans.  And that makes me very sad.  But my commitment this day is to try harder to see the greys, and to hear the other side of things.  My commitment is to be quicker to say "I'm sorry" and to forgive the other, but also faster to forgive myself for my part in conflicts (because, really, it is easier to face the truth of our errors if we know there will be forgiveness for them!). My commitment is to not just take the easy way of deciding who is right and who is wrong, but to recognize that everyone in a conflict is both right and wrong.  Everyone comes with stories and histories and everyone is in need of healing, reconciliation and forgiveness.  That's all I can do.  I can't change anyone else, but I can strive to do my part.

Mistakes, growing, learning, forgiving.

     As this New Year begins, I find myself reflecting on events in my own life from years ago.  I've been taking a webinar on forgiveness and I think that it, too, is prompting this reflection.  My biggest challenge in terms of forgiveness, as I think is the case for many people, is learning to forgive myself.  I think that these arising memories of things that happened as far back as my childhood are opportunities to step more fully into self-forgiveness as well.

   Today I found myself reflecting on my first call.  When I was in seminary, and frankly my years as a young adult before going to seminary, I felt pretty clear that my primary call into ministry was primarily "prophetic".  What I mean by that is that I knew that while ministers are called to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" that my call was very much on the "afflict the comfortable" end of things.  I regularly stood up against injustices, taking concrete actions to confront oppressive government behaviors, to organize rallies and non-violent protests, to preach and speak and organize on behalf of the "least of these" - those who are often overseen, neglected, abused, oppressed and worse.  I didn't care who I angered by these actions - seeing their anger, if anything, as a sign that I was on the right track.  After all, we know that Jesus angered people enough with his standing up against the legalists and the hypocrites that they killed him.  I felt if people were angry that I was standing up for the poor and oppressed, then I must be doing something right.  At my ordination, the friend I had invited to preach spoke about this.  He said that I rattled cages, but that this was the gift, this was the call that I clearly had been given: to confront the oppressor, to challenge the apathetic into truly learning to love those others would disregard.

    But then I went to my first church call.  I went in roaring and pushing for the church to take strong stands on justice issues.  And instead of being able to make those changes, I found that I got the ire and suspicions up from those who saw me as an inexperienced upstart who didn't really understand my position or my place.  Instead of making the changes I knew I was called to make, I was disregarded and discounted more and more.  My voice, which had carried weight and value in college, at seminary, and even during my internship, was pushed aside.  I was effectively limited in voice as well as in action.  I was an associate pastor, so people weren't leaving the church, but they were closing off the work I could do, tightening the reigns on my options, and closing doors to relationships.  I left that position after only a year.  And while much of my leaving had to do with a difficult senior pastor who simply did not "play well with women," I'm certain that my decision to leave was exacerbated by my own sense of not doing well in that call.

    Fortunately, I didn't leave without learning and growing.  I learned that relationships must be built, trust must be gained, people must know that you love them, and not just because you've said it but because you've shown it, before they will be able to hear things that challenge their thinking, that encourage them to look at things differently, that then call them to different actions.  I learned that pushing too hard leads only to anger and separation, not growth in others.  I learned that listening first is extremely important.  I also learned that first impressions are sometimes the only impressions you will be allowed to give.  And that once we have alienated someone, rebuilding those relationships can be extremely hard to do.  While apologies are important, the "other" may not always accept them, so being thoughtful from the start is important.

    When we talk about "repentance" in the church, we are talking about taking another path, choosing a different way to go, to walk; turning from one direction to another.  And we take this seriously.  But my experience tells me that most of the time while we can see our own growth, and we can celebrate the steps we've made to become different people, more loving people, more faithful people, people who are more whole, we don't always trust or see that others are also growing.  Part of our failure to forgive other people is an inability to see or accept that the other may have genuinely changed, grown and moved from wherever it was that caused them to do damage to us or to someone else that we care about.  When it comes to self-forgiveness, I think that I struggle with actions that may have hurt or upset others in part because I believe that THEY don't understand that I, too, have changed, moved, grown, "repented", chosen a different path, seen where I've erred and strived to do better.  My fear that they can't see that in me, and that they can't forgive me in part encourages me to not forgive myself.  It shouldn't be that way.  I can't control what others see, feel or think.  And I should not allow what others judge in me to determine my own behaviors or the ways in which I view myself.  But this is easier said than done...

    I'm still learning.  I'm still growing.  I'm still making mistakes.  And there are people who cannot or will not forgive me.  There are people who will not accept that I change and grow, too.  There are people who will choose judgment and rejection over an open-heart when it comes to relationships with me.  When you are in a leadership position, it sometimes is easier for people to simply write you off then work through the hard and painful process of reconciliation.  I understand this.  I don't like it, but I understand it.  So today my goals are two fold: first, I will work more on self-forgiveness.  I find that self-forgiveness leads more deeply into a change in behavior than any intense self-judgment can possibly do, anyway.  So I do this for the "others" in my life as well, so that I may have the grace and compassion to truly grow in my actions, to be more loving, to be more aware, to listen more deeply.  My second goal is to remember how it feels when others box me into "that's just the way she is" kind of thinking and to be more open about the possibilities that others are growing too. These are my goals for this day.  I invite you into deeper self-forgiveness as well. And I encourage you to remember that just as you are growing and changing, others are too.  Perhaps we can be better at giving all people the benefit of the doubt: both ourselves and others.  

Gift of Renewal

 

Luke 3:1-22

Mark 1:4-11

There once was a little boy named Sam who was very excited about Halloween.  But his parents kept putting off getting his costume until finally the day of Halloween his mother came home with a costume that Sam hated.  It was of some comic book character who had been big once but who now was seen by all the kids to be ridiculous and only for the littlest of children.  Sam was devastated.  How could he ever wear this?  He couldn’t possibly go out on Halloween in this costume!  He was so upset, he ran down the street to where an older couple who had become surrogate grandparents to Sam lived.  He ran into their house and cried and cried about the terrible costume his mother had picked out for him.  Well, Norm, the older man thought for a few minutes and then he said to his wife, “Don’t we have some old costumes up in the attic from when our kids were children?”

“Why, I believe we do!”  she replied.  Up they all went into the attic and down they came with an old ghost costume.  Really, it was just a sheet with holes cut in it for the eyes.  But Sam was so thrilled with the costume, he just couldn’t wait to put it on.  With a look of awe in his eyes, he pulled the sheet down over his head and before anyone could stop him, he went running out the door to go trick or treating and ran straight through the yard and bam into a tree!  Norm saw this and he dashed out after him, picked up the little boy, but before he could stop him, there Sam took off again, running as fast as he could until bam he ran smack into another tree!  This time the force pushed him flat onto his back where he lay still until Norm came running up.  Norm wondered what on earth was going on until he looked into Sam’s face and realized that Sam had not lined up the eye holes to match his eyes.  He had been virtually blind, running around the yard, completely unable to see where he was going.  Norm gently but firmly took hold of the sheet, pulled it around until Sam was able to see through the eye holes, tied a rope around his waist to hold the costume in place and sent Sam off on a much more successful and enjoyable Halloween evening of trick-or-treating!

Blindness.  The inability to see without help.  Walking around in the dark, not because it is dark, but because our vision is covered, obscured in some way.  The darkness of failing to realize that we could see, if someone were to just help us adjust our costumes, adjust our outlook, adjust our approach, just a little bit.  Oftentimes it is this blindness which causes us to err, to sin, to take a wrong path so that somebody gets hit, whether it be just a tree or another person, someone gets hurt: and we obviously do as well. 

We all have our costumes a little bit askew.  We all think that we are speaking the same language, like the little boy knowing it is Halloween, knowing he is supposed to wear a costume and go out into the night.  Sometimes when we come thinking we know how things are supposed to work, we miss the very cues that tell us our eyes are not seeing clearly right now.

Similarly, when new people come into our spaces, it is sometimes hard to read them as well and so we have a goal for ourselves to see our vision of God’s hand at work in this place and to try to interpret that for any who are new coming into our space.  But regardless, I think it is important that we treat one another with patience, always, knowing that even as we speak the same languages, and even when we’ve known each other a long time, we never completely understand one another, we never completely can see with the same vision as one another.  So we struggle at times to walk together, learn together, work together, as we learn to see through the eye holes of our new trappings.  We try to respect different traditions, try to honor different values in ministry, recognizing that by the very nature of our being different people, with different church experiences and, raised with different values and different visions, we will do things differently, but we know that as people, we do and will step on toes, we do and will create and experience challenges that help us all grow, and we do and will undoubtedly make mistakes.  Part of what helps is to share with one another our stories, sharing what matters most to each of us about your lives, striving to trust one another with honesty, openness, to be the people who, when we have run into a tree can come and adjust the eye-holes and with grace and forgiveness, set us going on a path that will make our walks easier, cleaner, straighter and will involve us hitting as few trees, or even people, as possible.  

It also involves forgiveness, and seeking to heal relationships when things have not gone well, when we have hit trees, when we haven’t been able to see correctly.  One of the wisest sayings I know is that you never understand what someone else is going through.  We never do, so seeking to remember that, to have compassion for the other, to be kind, is essential.  Giving the other the benefit of the doubt is absolutely necessary if we are to find peace in this life-time.  As I’ve shared with you before, it is extremely important that we forgive, not for the sake of the one we are forgiving, but really for our own sakes.  Studies are showing more and more exactly how important this is.  Our physical well-being seems deeply connected to forgiveness.  The lack of forgiveness increases blood pressure, increases chances of stroke and heart disease, and greatly affects people’s chances of surviving cancers.  Emotionally, the lack of forgiveness can lead to bitterness, depression, and an inability to move forward.  But we often don’t know HOW to forgive.  I’ve been taking a weekly course through the Board of Pensions on forgiving and forgiveness.  And this last week in my webinar, they gave us an exercise to do.  They told us to write out a story about something we were having a difficult time forgiving.  Then they said on a separate piece of paper, take out of the story we wrote only facts.  Not guesses about what the other person thought or what their intentions were or what they believed or didn’t believe.  Just write down the facts of what happened.  And then take the original story and throw it away.  I tried this exercise and found that it was AMAZING.  That most of what I had been upset or angry about were things I had assumed, guessed, “intuited”.  Similarly, I have been attacked and accused of feelings or thoughts or ideas that were never my own: that other people’s anger at me usually is based on something unreal. 

About two years ago I went for a hike with a friend from college.  She was asking me about mutual friends whom I was more in touch with than she was.  And then I asked her about mutual friends with whom she had closer connections.  When I asked her about one friend in particular, she told me that “oh, yeah!  I called her about a year ago but didn’t hear back, and then I tried again about 6 months ago.  It’s time for me to try to reach out again!”  She said this without critique, without judgement, and what struck me more, without any kind of pain or sense of being ignored.  If I had reached out to someone repeatedly and they had not responded, I would have felt rejected, intentionally attacked in a passive-aggressive way.  I would assume that the person I had tried to contact was sending me a very clear message of “I don’t care about you.  I don’t like you.  I don’t want you in my life.”  So I asked her about it.  And SHE was stunned by my reaction.  “Oh!” she said, “I just assume she was busy and meant to call me back but got distracted by other things.”  My friends’ different approach, different assumptions, different understanding caught me off guard.  It showed me once again that the things that often offend me, or hurt me, or get my “ire” up – the things that may lead me to feel hurt and to hold on to grudges: these are often, if not always, a matter of my own interpretation. 

Today is baptism of the Lord Sunday.  It is the day when God comes and washes the dirt from our eyes.  It is the day when we celebrate that God offers us first, calls us first, even before we are able to ask for it, the gift of being made new, being made clean, of being given the possibility of different sight, different vision.  It is the second Sunday of epiphany, an appropriate time to recognize that Baptism is a gift we receive from God.  With its cleansing and renewing waters, then, we can see enough to strive to talk to others, to build relationships with others, to give to others, to forgive others and ourselves. 

Part of learning to walk with one another with our costumes on straight has to start with knowing who each other are, getting to know each other more deeply as individuals within a community.  But then it must continue with forgiveness, with the willingness to recognize our assumptions that are blocking our ability to forgive, to understand, to truly see and love one another.

Today, on this second Sunday of Epiphany, we are called to reflect on the amazing gift of baptism that God has given to first Jesus, and then us.  It is a gift of remembering that God calls us into relationship with God.  It is a gift of remembering that God initiates care for us, call to us, purpose and meaning for our lives, before we are even old enough to choose to respond. It is a gift that says, “because I first chose you, because I first brought new life to you, because I begin your life by giving to you every day again and again, because I always look for the best of who you are and forgiven and erase the past that is the worst; now you are called to return that gift to all God’s people, caring back, giving second chances to others, forgiving, choosing to love and live and care for others in the way that I have cared for you.” 

Often when we are meeting together on Baptism of the Lord Sunday, I choose to do some kind of remembrance of our baptism and baptism vows.  We are apart this year, which makes this more difficult.  But instead, I want us to do two different things in our separate spaces.  First, I am going to reread to you the promises that we make during baptism. 

Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior, trusting in his grace and love?

Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love?

Will you be a faithful member of this congregation, share in its worship and ministry through your prayers and gifts, your study and service and so fulfill your calling to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?

               Secondly, I would invite you to do the exercise that I was taught in my forgiveness webinar.  Think of someone you are struggling to forgive.  Think of what exactly it is that you are having trouble forgiving and write it down.  Write all of it down: all your thoughts, all your ideas, all your assumptions about their thoughts, their motivations.  “He was a selfish jerk and he just wanted to make my life miserable” kind of stuff.  Write it all down. Once you have finished with that, take a separate piece of paper and write down only the facts, the things you absolutely know.  What was said, what actually happened, what actually took place.  Not what you’ve heard, not what you’ve assumed, NOT what anyone else has told you, but the actual facts that you witnessed, that you saw, that you know.  Then take the first story that you wrote and throw it away.  Let it go.  Forgive.  By the way, that same forgiveness needs to be offered to ourselves as well: we often have the hardest time forgiving ourselves.

            This giving the benefit of the doubt, this erasing of the past, this creation of new relationships, new possibilities, new life – this is what God offers us.  And we are called, as I said, to do the same.  Take this remembrance of Jesus’ baptism, of your own, to remember all that God has done for you and to celebrate and offer the same to those around you.  Amen.

Angry, forgiving, thriving

    I have written often about the choice to be a thriver rather than either a victim or a survivor.  I have also written often that part of choosing to be a thriver is about forgiving, both ourselves and those who have hurt us, for whatever we have lived through.  We are all humans, none of us is perfect, and when we can have compassion, even for those who have done hard and terrible things to us, we are the ones released from that pain.  Our own anger often prevents us from healing, from moving forward, from thriving.  

    I believe all of this, deeply.  And yet, it does not prevent me from having those nights when I can't sleep because of something that happened years ago, some cruelty I lived through, something that perhaps I should have handled differently.  And I'll tell you honestly that when that does happen, my thoughts do not usually tend towards compassion or forgiveness, for myself or for the other.  Usually I envision things I "should" have done differently that would either have been a better fit for who I choose to be, or would have felt more like "justice" towards whomever hurt me.  

    Last night was no exception.  I woke up in the middle of the night thinking of the person who had uninvited me to a party she was having at her house based on misinformation that she, none the less, chose not to ask me about directly.  At the time, like the man in "An American President", I felt that I should not have to defend myself or seek to clarify something to someone who was simply choosing to believe the one side she had heard without checking it out with me.  So my response at the time was just to be polite and accept the dis-invitation without expressing any feelings about it whatsoever.  But last night I woke up thinking about this, which meant that at 2am this morning I woke up angry: angry at this woman for never asking my side, never checking things out, angry that she chose not to give me the benefit of the doubt, angry that she chose the friendship of the one badmouthing me over her friendship with me who chose to keep a private altercation private, angry that charming charismatic males are so often accepted at their word just because people want to be around them, and socially-awkward women are easily discarded in the face of those men, angry that she felt it was okay to just uninvite me.  I was also angry at myself for not naming it for what it was, "So, you are uninviting me?  And can you tell me more about why that is the choice you are making?"  I was angry at myself for not defending myself.  I was angry at myself for not speaking my truth at the time.  To be honest, I'm angry still.  I miss that friendship.  And yet, it ended that afternoon despite the fact that at the time I simply said, "I understand" and continued to smile and be polite and engaged.

    Last night I was not able to get back to sleep.  So I'm writing this from a place of half-conscious thoughts.  But still, as the daylight slowly dawned this morning I found myself thinking about who I want to be in the face of these past hurts and slights.  I've been reading about compassionate communication, as well as how to talk to people about racism/race issues.  I've been thinking about the growing divide in our country along political and ideological lines.  We've been studying together (many of us in the congregation) the importance of not limiting our connections to those we agree with, those we connect well with.  The divides and struggles will continue if we cannot hear one another, cannot learn to be with others who are different.  And all of that has to begin with re-learning compassion, with hearing below the words that are said for the feelings of the other, the commonalities in experience and values, the deeper stories that connect us all.  

    So today, I'm trying to apply that as I seek both to forgive the other and to forgive myself.  I cannot check this out with the person who dis-invited me: we have no connection at this point and I would not know how to find one since we live in different parts of the world.  But I can still listen, listen to the past, listen beneath her words of the time, listen for where she was and what she was feeling and needing at the time.  I hear her desire to have this other friendship, to maintain those connections, at whatever cost.  I hear her trust that I am strong enough to handle the dis-invitation, and, frankly, that I will not reject her simply because she has rejected me.  I hear her desire to believe her other friend and to not have anything that would confront that trust placed in him.  I hear her anger at me for a story (not much of which I know since I don't actually know what she was told) that she has heard that places me in the role of "bad guy".  I hear her need for things to be clear, for there to be a clear "bad guy" and clear "good guy" in the situation.  I choose, then, to have compassion for those needs and concerns that she had, and to forgive her for living out those feelings in a way that hurt me and my family.  I choose it, which doesn't mean that I feel forgiveness or even that deep compassion at the moment, but that I'm working towards that.

    Similarly, I am listening beneath my own choices in the moment.  I did not want to be confrontive or angry at the moment because I did not know how that would play out or if I would be able to heal any breech that caused in the moment.  I did not want to share my own experiences and have them doubted or disbelieved.  I did not know how to speak my truth in the moment and I was afraid of speaking in a way that would have deeper consequences. I was going through huge changes at the time and I could not bear one more.   I also did not want to harm her friendship with this other person and have to carry that on my conscience.  For all these reasons I responded with an acceptance, which did show a strength in myself to withstand cruelty and to even have compassion for it.  And maybe that was a gift that I gave back at that moment.  I choose, therefore, to have compassion for my own decisions at that moment.  I also choose to explore with myself, in the future, whether there is something more I need to do with this situation to heal it for myself.  And I choose to forgive the choice that I made then, learning from it that I need to find compassionate and kind ways to ask more questions, to seek more information, and to step forward into my own truth more often in situations such as this.  Again, I may not be feeling this way right now, but these are the choices I make and that I will work hard to step into.  

    Finally, I am not unaware that there are reasons this scenario was the one that woke me this morning in the wee hours.  I am experiencing something similar with another person right now who is choosing to disconnect rather than to seek out information or healing.  I do not want this, too, to become a situation I wake up from in the middle of the night in three or five or ten years, unhealed, unaddressed.  So I hear in my morning musings a call to look at this situation square in the face as well.

    We "act as if" and then we become what we take on.  Therefore I choose who I will be in this moment.  And who I choose to be is a person listening, a person trying to hear more deeply and more fully, a person seeking for connection rather than broken hearts and broken relationships.

    You, too, get to choose who you will be.  Choose well, dear friends.

Cycling through Forgiveness as we Cycle through Grief

        I don't believe forgiveness is a linear thing, anymore than grief is.  And today I was struck by the fact that it is, undoubtedly, because the two are so closely related.  

    Anger, we are told, is a secondary emotion, and it usually is a cover for sadness, or grief (or fear).  Forgiveness is a way to let go, to release that anger from our bodies, from our minds, from our beings.  Grief is not linear, so forgiveness won't be either.  As we cycle through the pain of loss, and especially the anger of loss (one of the stages of grief), we will probably need to forgive again.  Also, just as new losses can push us into reliving old losses and can bring up that old grief all over again, new things that anger us can cause us to remember at a cellular, emotionally based level old injuries and present us with new opportunities to work towards forgiveness again, hopefully at a deeper level, for what has happened in the past.

    This came up for me this morning as a scripture I read threw me back into an injury from almost two years ago, and the realization that while I had forgiven it at the time, I would now need to work to forgive it again.  That while I had grieved the loss and the pain of that injury at that time, that it hurt again, that it cut again, and that I would need to grieve it, going through the denial, negotiation, anger, and depression again to come to a place of acceptance and then forgiveness once more.  Ugh.  

    Grieving is hard work.  Forgiveness is, perhaps, even harder work.  It requires us to remember the humanity of the other, and to have compassion for their challenges and their histories that have impacted who they are today.  It means letting go of the anger by walking through it to the other side.  It means experiencing the pain of loss once more.  And then, deep forgiveness requires self-reflection as well, and asks of us a commitment to look with intention and integrity at our own part in a situation.  If a person cannot be self-reflective, forgiveness is unattainable.  The more self-reflective a person can be, the more quickly a person will be able to pass through to forgiveness.  But it seems that self-reflection is not really something we value too much in our current culture.  It is a difficult calling to look at our own failings, to own them, to admit (or confess) them and to attempt to make amends for them.  I deeply believe it is the only way we can truly heal, but it is a challenge many simply cannot face.

    I am reminded of Dumbledore's conversation with Harry in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow's about Voldemort.   He said that even this evil man could heal all the horrible, awful things he had done.  There was hope for him, but it was only to be found in a decision on his part to look, to see what he had done and to feel remorse.  Dumbledore also admitted that the pain of that remorse would be worse than he could imagine.  And, unfortunately,  it was a pain Voldemort was simply unwilling to experience.  

    Even with small things, people can be scared or afraid to self-reflect.  And that fear of the pain of self-reflection keeps us from forgiveness.  One might ask then if we are able to do that work and are able to forgive, why do we then have to forgive again?

     Just as each time that grief resurfaces we have an opportunity to dive a little deeper into healing that grief, each time anger rises at another person, we have the call to dig deeper into compassion, self-reflection, and ultimately forgiveness.  

      Again, none of this is easy.  As I sat with my own grief, pain and anger this morning I realized how much easier it would be for me to just remain hurt and angry and not do the work of self-reflection or the work of remembering that the others have histories and pain, too, that I need to approach with compassion and grace.  It would be simpler to stay mad.  To be holier than thou.  To allow the anger and judgement to build safe but isolating walls between myself and those who hurt me.  It would be so much less work.  It would also be "safer".  I would then no longer have to be vulnerable to their actions, to their ability to injure me.  I could walk away and self-righteously declare that I did not need that kind of "friendship," and that this loss of relationship was THEIR loss for not treating me right in the first place.  I could do that.  But I would be lying to myself if I did.  And I would miss an opportunity for deeper healing for myself.  

    So today I once again choose the harder path.  I will take the time I need to journal and reflect, to grieve again, and to own my part in the problem.  I will do what must be done to heal at the next level, and more, to forgive again.  Their intentions and their choices ultimately are immaterial in this.  The forgiveness must be given for the sake of my own soul, my own peace of mind, and my own walk towards wholeness.  I would wish for all of you to find that peace as well.  Blessings on your day.

Struggling with Forgiveness

         I've just finished reading Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice for the gazillionth time.  I don't really know how many times I've read it, but I seem to circle back to it at least once every few years, and each time I do, I hear and see new things in it.  This time I was thinking about how forgiving the family is of Lydia when she truly disgraces them all and puts all of their futures at risk.  Lydia has no concept at all of her impropriety.  None.  The mother, Mrs. Bennet, likewise has no concept at all of what Lydia has done to the family.  The trouble, intense shame and pain, the fears and struggles, as well as the huge expense that they cost a great number of people in the book has no physical or emotional impact on Mrs. Bennet, Lydia, or her new husband, Wickham.  It causes them no discomfort or regrets at all.  They are completely oblivious to their wrong-doing and their actions, their "silliness", their lack of sense, their ability (inability) to grow - nothing is affected by what they have done. And yet, despite all of this, everyone who sees this intensely selfish, unaware, unreflective, narcissistic behavior is ready and able to forgive them.  And every time I read the story I find myself saying, "I don't understand that.  How can they just let this terrible behavior go without any consequences?  How can they still be so very generous and caring to these people and let them get away without comprehension or cost to their actions?!"  I get upset every time, and not just at their actions, but at the lack of social consequence for those actions.
        And then this time, something struck me anew.  There is a ridiculous pastor in the book, Mr. Collins, who writes to Lydia's father after the event with these words, "...I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from declaring my amazement at hearing that you received the young couple into your house as soon as they were married.  It was an encouragement of vice; and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have opposed it.  You ought certainly to forgive them, as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing." And what I heard in the words of the most ridiculous and insensible person in the book was a reflection of my own feelings and thoughts towards those characters.  It gave me pause to find my own thoughts put into the words of a supercilious, ridiculous pastor.  This was even more the case when coupled with Mr. Bennet's response of, "That is his notion of Christian forgiveness!" 
         It is not forgiving to insist that others suffer the consequences of their actions and behaviors.  It's not.  We all do it: we want others to pay when they make mistakes.  We want "criminals" to go to jail and pay for their mistakes.  We want crazy drivers on the road to pay for their insane and threatening driving.  We want people who we see as "wrong" to know they are wrong, to find it out, to have shame and pain around their mistaken behavior or even their mistaken thinking.  We want and expect consequences.  And while boundary setting is important, and natural and logical consequences make sense, especially when we are parents, the kind of "punishment" that we usually dole out or think of is about inflicting pain on the one who has hurt us: causing them to suffer at least the shame of their actions because they have caused us pain.  It is about revenge, it is about striking back when someone has struck us.  But this is not forgiveness.  It is certainly not what Jesus talks about when he mentions "turning the other cheek", or forgiving again and again.  We don't practice this, so we don't see it often.  When we do see it (like in this book), it often strikes us as frustrating and incomplete.  But that only shows, really, the depth of our "need" for others to pay for what they have done.
        As I talked about in a recent blog post, seeking revenge first and then "forgiving" is not actually forgiving and is not actually loving.  True forgiveness means letting go of the hope that the other will suffer punishment from what they have done or failed to do.  Truly loving another means loving and accepting the other despite the wrongs the other does, and despite, at times, a lack of suffering for those wrongs. 
        We hope for that kind of forgiveness for ourselves.  None of us is perfect.  All of us do wrong.  But we hope we won't suffer the consequences of those wrongs. We hope for forgiveness, even when we struggle to offer it to others in the same ways.
        Pride and Prejudice is just a story.  But I found myself challenged with the thinking that if I can begin by forgiving the characters in a story, perhaps I can learn to forgive more fully the real people in my life as well.  It certainly has given me a greater insight into one of my short-comings: the ability to always let go of a wrong once it has been done.  So for that insight today I am grateful.  And I will continue to work to step forward into doing better.