Forgiveness

Breaking Free

“It doesn’t really matter what proportion of your pain-body belongs to your nation or race and what proportion is personal.  In either case, you can only go beyond it by taking responsibility for your inner state now.  Even if blame seems more than justified, as long as you blame others, you keep feeding the pain-body with your thoughts and remain trapped in your ego.  There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness.  That realization is true forgiveness.  With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges—the power of Presence.  Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring the light.”

                                  Eckhart Tolle

                                  A New Earth

       

         I visited Burke Memorial Gardens while I was in North Carolina.  My cousin, Sandy, and I cleaned out the little brass urns on six graves and filled them with new plastic flowers.  The cemetery does not allow real flowers--too messy.

   

I am reminded of all the times Mother and I came here and fussed over the family graves.   I never liked this pointless and expensive ritual, but now with everyone gone I feel compelled to do it.  I go from grave to grave thinking, Mother and Daddy would like bright colors, reds and yellows; Jerrie and Fred—how about pink and purple; Mama and Papa-always lavender, and so on.  The purpose is remembering.  Remembering and honoring.  Oh, I know they aren’t here, but it isn’t done for them—it is an act of forgiveness and understanding—for me.

I spent a good deal of my precious life blaming these folks for my problems.  They were flawed, like all of us.  They expected a lot from me—sometimes more than I had to give.  If it hadn’t been for them, I would have….  You probably know the story.  You could fill in the gaps.  It takes a lot of energy to hold anger and resentment in place, to be mad all the time.  It will wear you out, honey.

The only way out of that snake pit is forgiveness.  It’s letting go and giving in to compassion—and admitting love.  Admitting that, regardless of the sins of omission and commission, I loved them and they loved me.  We shared a common life.  I failed them, they failed me, I helped them and they helped me.  We were a faulty, funky, lame and loving family.  Thank God for Sandy—she’s alive and well and normal—sort of.

                                  In the spirit,

                                  Jane