or coming back toward you.
(thank you, Deena)
Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.
Henri Nouwen –
Forgiving does not mean forgetting. When we forgive a person, the memory of the wound might stay with us for a long time, even throughout our lives. Sometimes we carry the memory in our bodies as a visible sign. But forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing. When we forgive our parents for their divorce, our children for their lack of attention, our friends for their unfaithfulness in crisis, our doctors for their ill advice, we no longer have to experience ourselves as the victims of events we had no control over.
Forgiveness allows us to claim our own power and not let these events destroy us; it enables them to become events that deepen the wisdom of our hearts. Forgiveness indeed heals memories.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there. – Rumi
I go to this field most every day looking for the person who introduced me to this line of Rumi’s. And I’m alone.
I’ll continue to go.
Today the Anglican, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic Churches celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle. The same St. Paul, then called Saul, of whom it was said “Surely, this is the man who did such damage in Jerusalem…” The story of Saul’s conversion, found in Acts 9, is a remarkable story, a model of redemption. It gives me hope. It has shown me a path, a simple – and now familiar – path to recovery.
Simple, that is, once I got knocked off my high horse!
I, like Saul, once walked around with a grand sense of my own importance – big job, beautiful house, beautiful family, travel, clothes, cars…people who loved and admired me. I really was a somebody. There was one big problem, one major disconnection: I stopped working on my relationship with God. I stopped working at it and assumed that we were ok. We must have been ok…right? God had clearly shown me favor – I wanted for nothing.
In a similar way, I’d come to take my work for granted. And most egregiously, I’d taken relationships with close family and friends for granted.
I was living on hi-test ego. And like Saul, I defied subtlety. I heard the messages alright; I heard that voice and didn’t change, wouldn’t change. I was too proud and too full of my self. And that voice was so easy to disregard.
So God knocked me hard, hard enough to thoroughly disorient me, hard enough to knock me to the ground, hard enough to remove all the trappings of my self-importance, my self regard. I lost my sight. I couldn’t see where to go, didn’t know what to do.
Thankfully, I was given a simple message much like the message that Saul heard, “…you will be told what to do.” I found people who held me up and led me to a safe place where I could begin to recover my sight and learn to walk again – but now, as a humble student and servant. I, like Saul, took up residence at a place called Straight Street.
(The street exists today https://www.google.com/maps/place/Medhat+Basha+Souq/@33.507555,36.302731,16.63z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x1518e72a5e2d2ab9:0x16c3884e526c1b82!8m2!3d33.5086737!4d36.3051255 as Midhat Pasha Souq at its western end while the eastern end is called Bab Sharqi Street.)
Early on I came to know three things, as Saul (now Paul) had to learn:
Today I joyfully celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle.
The Oblate priest and theologian, Ronald Rolheiser, writes about suicide once a year. He explains it this way – “So each year I write a column on suicide, hoping it might help produce more understanding around the issue and, in a small way perhaps, offer some consolation to those who have lost a loved one in this way. Essentially, I say the same things each year because they need to be said. As Margaret Atwood once put it, some things need to be said and said and said again, until they don’t need to be said any more. Some things need still to be said about suicide.”
Talk about suicide does not come easy – particularly if you are someone who has lived and has seen the darkness lifted. Best, we may think, to ponder those dark moments alone. But this morning I will be on my knees giving thanks to God for another chance to breathe deeply, to laugh, to cry, to feel pain and heartbreak, to feel remorse and sorrow, to love. This afternoon I will give thanks for all who have held me up when I couldn’t stand. This evening I will close my eyes and pray for all those who suffer alone, even when in a crowd, may they – like me – find refuge in the shadow of God’s wings.
Rolheiser writes:
What things? What needs to be said, and said again and again about suicide? For the sake of clarity, let me number the points:
Edge of Atlantic 