Monday, June 7, 2010

the ultimate F word

Egad!!!  It's taken me a bit to get back on here...satellite service non existent.  So much has happened in this last week, where do I begin?  Hmmm...I do believe I'll hit on a subject that this blog hasn't covered much.  Seems the lessons learned this week all centered around forgiveness.  Notice I declare it around, not many of the folks I have encountered have actually aimed for it...me included.
(Warning-Rather long and cryptic, no real solutions either!)
Funny how we can see in each other the need for strengthening up certain areas, but when we start to getting a little irritable with weaknesses in our friends and neighbors, we too get a bit itchy in the parts we don't care to scratch...speaking for myself- there are a few people in my life I would like to forgive.  Not that they deserve it, mind you- but, me being a truewonder and all, well you know where I'm going with this.  How can I possibly expect tolerance when I am so very limited in that quality at times as well?  My own two hands have been involved in misadventures of the hurting kind.  God knows, I need forgiveness too for the many blunders I have taken part in, sometimes a greater part than anyone.  And I knew better.  That's where the itch begins, in the better part of me where weeds aren't supposed to grow and only lovely things flower...between you and I dear reader, I've got a few weeds to pull there in my own soul-garden.  Like the fact that I haven't spoken to a major "sore spot"  in months...sure I write letters, send gifts but I cannot bear to listen to the soreness.  I long for the words- I am sorry, I should have been there, I shouldn't have divided you...I love you,It's not your fault,I don't blame you...those words I know I'll never hear. Instead every statement there is oppositely reinforced in the negative, it's simply unbearable  The sore spot does not ask for forgiveness, does not want it...takes no responsibility for anything whatsoever.  So how do you forgive someone who wouldn't own it anyway?

 Here's the deal...I could forgive everything if only today we would begin again...or tomorrow...or the next day...or again and again and  again.  But nothing ever changes, so why should I?  I love from afar, less damage that way.  That's my excuse, my fortress that keeps me safe from the "monster" episodes I call them.  But also from afar, I can see someone who needs loving the most yet deserves it the least.  From afar, I am not so deeply inflicted by ammunition slung by a soul who can only love in the way of hurt.  Have somebody like that in your life?  Someone who feels so much pain and instead of dealing with it, they inflict it like poison arrows to your very soul?  How does one forgive that?

  These are matters of the deep heart, one that I have calculatingly protected from more damage.  Am I strong enough to believe in this grace within me to rise above?  I tell you I just don't know...but I've seen some numbers done on folks this week, they call it love- but it seems like more of a destroy tactic to me.  If I know one thing for sure, and this may be the only real thing I know- love always creates, it never destroys.  How does one create love with another that knows no other source BUT destruction?  How does one maneuver best around  the people among us who manipulate, calculate- are cold and hateful?  I tell you again, I just don't know- my wings are working fine now and I so do not want that flying part of me to become singed by the fiery flames of another.

.  I honor the creed, always be kinder than necessary.  I see beauty in ugly faces and places...but the one face I long to behold in beauty... is so frightening to me, and not only do I see the hurt and pain there, I feel it to my very core.   And there seems to lie their only joy- inflicting their pain.  I am  not such a willing pincushion these days.  Makes them mad as hell, which to my eyes-is at the very least more honesty than I've ever known in that face.  I have learned to tell the monster-NO, not allowed.  And the space between us grows ever larger, every "No!"  I command is met with worsening threats.  None thus far carried out...perhaps they won't fall, perhaps they'll fly across that great divide some day and plead, "tell me yes!"  And I'll say, "My, how far you've come... yes!  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!"  And  the beginning that might begin again will begin....again.

The moral of the story that has no end in sight- happily ever after means sometimes, simply forgiving yourself for believing that love divides, and pain is deserved for something you've surely done to receive it.  After all that fearful belief system is broke down and aired out- love looks like this-

Sometimes there is a gap between us that only love can fill...but sometimes that gap has no bottom and all the grace leaks out.  If that's the case- find the grace within you and redirect it towards loving and forgiving yourself and everyone you are able to, without losing your own footing again.

There's the work and it's terribly hard, and sometimes oh-so-lonely.  I choose to love my self up close, and others who often wield love like a knife- I'll love them from a safe distance.  That may not be the best way to navigate forgiveness, but it's a whole lot easier on a heart that's been mended a million times over...it's dangerous to have a heart like that and be around folks with scissors looking  for loose threads.  I have found that those folks who cut instead of mend...might scream , and act out and say they'll fall- most often times are the very ones who always land on their feet completely intact while you lay there in shreds.  That's been my experience anyway...

Forgiveness is the ultimate F word indeed.

( little grasshopper...I wrote this as current events are so parallel to past experiences and the remembered "soreness",  hoping that I might better help you navigate.  If not now, perhaps sometime in the future when you are centered and strong and very sure of your footing- maybe, just maybe the beginning again can begin.  If it helps, I trust you'll make the right decision for you and only you at this time.  Someone has had ample time to start across that great divide...If my child ever felt the way you describe, I'd become the best damn mountain climber that ever was and cross the divide, a thousand times over if I had to.  There is still hope here..., say and be beautiful to the best of your ability, be right within yourself and all will work out.)

7 comments:

Rhiannon said...

No better way of putting it, the ultimate F word indeed!!! Things can always change, no one ever truly knows what the future holds. But I can say I'm not ready for the F word, and I won't be this fall either. We'll talk soon, wedding details consumed me last week and this weekend. It's a sweet escape :)

Love you!!!!

Anonymous said...

How interesting that this is your post today... for the last week I have been confronted with some of my own itchy spots that I'm repeatedly trying to forgive in myself. Oh goodness, and love... when does that point come when it's less painful to leave it behind than it is to be painfully loved? I have a difficult time letting go of people and a very easy time falling in love. Not a great combo.
Gal, we need to have a chat over tea!

truewonder said...

Tea it is, what's your schedule? Talk to you soon...

Love you too there miss Rhi, gh...breathe, repeat the mantra-
nothing less than love, nothing less than love...(I don't find that is asking too much, do you?)

Anonymous said...

Amen. We can forgive someone whose main joy comes from hurting others and that doesn't mean we have to subject ourselves to their hurts anymore. God sees we have forgiven them and we know we have forgiven them, so that is what is important. As I am always telling my kids: life is full of choices. They choose to be hurtful. We choose to forgive and not enable them to be hurtful to us. Enjoy Maine - it has to be drier than here in the mudpuddle of the midwest! :-) K

truewonder said...

K,

Beautiful comment...a thinker to boot. I've heard of the muddy puddle there...send some this way if you would. My 48 year old shoulders are tired of the bucket brigade!
Take care-

Sarah said...

I was only allowed to know you for a little while, but the impact you impart is full beyond measure. I distinctly remember the day I first heard you say that axiom "Love always creates; it never destroys." It reached me deeply then and still does every time I deal with my monsters. I miss your wisdom and caring, your understanding. I got to witness your tenderly furious love for your children, your nuturing soul. You were an answer to a whispered prayer that spring. Miss you.

truewonder said...

Dear Sarah,

The feeling then and now...mutual. Miss you too, miss the talks...even though I say lots of crap, some of it sticks, some of it not so well and then I get it again...because I have friends like you who whisper truth back to me when I forget what it looks like, what it sounds like...I think I need to delve a little deeper here, dear Sarah. You OK?