Forgiveness

I received a gift last week. It was a gift which I received along with my own baggage of how another important person had not given me the same gift, in exactly the same way. I woke up this morning realizing I 1) had not received the first gift fully, and 2) No one gives things in exactly the same way as another. Another lesson in forgiveness.

I wake up and realize

I have now forgiven you

For something

You never said

You never even

Implied.

It was the small child in me

Who was rarely noticed,

Rarely praised,

Who interpreted things

In a twisted way.

Sure

You might have said things better

But now I hear the tone,

A clear tone

Almost

A silver bell.

I look at the mountains,

Out the window,

My shoulders relax,

The bell sounds,

And it is simply

Gone.

Lots and lots

This is not really about forgiveness, unless you need it to be about forgiveness.  Once again, it is about counting... or more specifically, not needing to count.  I had a wonderful meeting yesterday with a therapist colleague who has been a therapist for years.  While he talked about wanting to teach what he can about the therapist craft to new therapists or therapists-to-be, and cited the 10,000 hours of practice principle, I left him remembering how he taught a class I took in grad school, and his openness, and how I could call him for lunch and have conversations like this one.  

Forgiveness takes lots and lots

Of practice.

Jesus said it:

Seventy seven times

Or perhaps

Seventy times seven.

Anyway,

Or any-hoo,

As my father used to say,

Lots and lots,

No matter how

We translate the number

From the Greek:

Lots and lots.

We must forgive

Until we simply lose track

Of the count

And it becomes

As natural

As breathing.

Like breathing

It seems appropriate that tomorrow our Gospel centers on forgiveness.  9-11 is one of those occasions seared into our minds and hearts as a nation.  Everyone has a story around it.  We remember anniversaries in ones and fives and tens.  This is ten.  Forgiveness takes practice.

Forgiveness takes practice,

A lot of practice,

So much practice that it is necessary

To completely lose track

Of where you are

In numbers

In occasions

Even

In geography.

So much practice until it becomes

Like your lungs

Taking in air

Breathing as if on their own.

We do not have to practice breathing.

We have been doing it

Since birth.

Forgiveness takes practice

Again and again and again

Seventy times seven

Then

Seventy times seven

Again

Practice until

Just like when we come up for air

The breath fills our lungs

And we go on

With the very next breath

Without a thought.

After all

We have been doing it

Our whole lives.

We have practiced it

Our whole lives

Just like seventy times seven

We are invited

To continue the practice

Like breathing.