FORGIVENESS
My experience has called me time and time again to look deeply into my practice and my spiritual guides to find the ground of compassion out of which forgiveness springs.
Today is a poignant day in that looking as it is Good Friday, a day that for many years was at the core of my spiritual practice. As Mark and Luke, two of Jesus' disciples recount in passages of this epoch, one of the last things that Jesus said before he gave over his embodied life is "Forgive them, for they know not what they do". This was his offering to those that had hunted him down, whipped him, beat him, put a crown of thorns on his head, made him carry a tree to the place that he would be hung with other criminals and then nailed him to this tree. An excruciating way to die, a method of punishment reserved for some of the most despicable people of the time.
In my 81 year old, devoutly Catholic, parent's house still today hangs a picture of Jesus with a sacred heart afire and dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit in that heart. Many of the days and years of my life were spent soaking in this image of Jesus, studying it, glancing up at it while watching TV or after dinner, checking it closely to see if the left over aluminum ball we were playing indoor baseball with had chipped it. Checking it twice to assure its eyes were not moving when I was doing something secretively.
This recalling on this day exposes some facet of forgiveness to me. Maybe all that is to be forgiven is those times that I have invested in the belief that I am separate. That somehow the actions of others were affirmations of this separateness and that I gave them greater merit than the conviction that resonates in my core. That I abandon my core truth and knowing to judge another, to reflect my fear to another through anger. Those times my heart closed in shame and judgement, in a desire to be right, in believing I was better than someone else.
For the times, in the pit of my suffering, that I did not forgive my self....
For I knew not what I was doing....
Today is a poignant day in that looking as it is Good Friday, a day that for many years was at the core of my spiritual practice. As Mark and Luke, two of Jesus' disciples recount in passages of this epoch, one of the last things that Jesus said before he gave over his embodied life is "Forgive them, for they know not what they do". This was his offering to those that had hunted him down, whipped him, beat him, put a crown of thorns on his head, made him carry a tree to the place that he would be hung with other criminals and then nailed him to this tree. An excruciating way to die, a method of punishment reserved for some of the most despicable people of the time.
In my 81 year old, devoutly Catholic, parent's house still today hangs a picture of Jesus with a sacred heart afire and dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit in that heart. Many of the days and years of my life were spent soaking in this image of Jesus, studying it, glancing up at it while watching TV or after dinner, checking it closely to see if the left over aluminum ball we were playing indoor baseball with had chipped it. Checking it twice to assure its eyes were not moving when I was doing something secretively.
This recalling on this day exposes some facet of forgiveness to me. Maybe all that is to be forgiven is those times that I have invested in the belief that I am separate. That somehow the actions of others were affirmations of this separateness and that I gave them greater merit than the conviction that resonates in my core. That I abandon my core truth and knowing to judge another, to reflect my fear to another through anger. Those times my heart closed in shame and judgement, in a desire to be right, in believing I was better than someone else.
For the times, in the pit of my suffering, that I did not forgive my self....
For I knew not what I was doing....
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