Forgiveness

Forgiveness is not an occasional art, it is a permanent attitude.

--Martin Luther

This quote showed up in my inbox a few months ago and got me started thinking about forgiveness. The traditional view of forgiveness is that it is a discrete, chosen response to a specific wrong suffered. Someone insults or injures me; and, instead of getting them back or hating them, I choose to forgive them--an occasional art. So what does it mean for forgiveness to be a permanent attitude? Another quote on forgiveness showed up in my inbox that perhaps sheds some light on this:

Forgiveness is giving up the right to retaliate. Forgiveness is the willingness to have something happen the way it happened. It's not true that you can't forgive something; it's a matter of the will, and you always have the choice. Forgiveness is never dependent on what the other person does or does not do; it is always under our control. Forgiveness is giving up the insistence on being understood.... Jesus forgave those who crucified him. This is a radically new way of thinking. For those who accept and practice this discipline, there is a release of energy and a sense of freedom.--Pixie Koestline Hammond
For Everything There Is a Season

Giving up the right to retaliate, to have things turn out the way I want, to be understood. This is a radical notion indeed. Sure I'll forgive someone; but, deep down, I want them to know that they've done wrong but that I, in my benevolence, have forgiven them. What I really want is what I perceive to be justice. You hurt me, and my gracious (hah!) forgiveness ought to make you feel like the worm you are! After all, things should have turned out better. Don't I deserve that?

Another way to say this might be that forgiveness is not having to be right or in control. Ouch. I like being in control. If I'm in a car, I'd rather be driving. I get a little jittery when I'm in big, noisy crowds; I mean, anything could happen! Small children are a challenge for me for the same reasons. Don't even get me started on being right. Let's just agree that I am; and, if it appears that I'm not, you probably don't understand what I mean. You see my problem.

Perhaps true forgiveness, forgiveness as a continuous attitude, is recognizing that I am not in control and do not have any guarantees about being right, being understood, or getting my way. Instead of responding to wrongs suffered, what if I were to give up feeling wronged and, therefore, suffering?

Right and wrong, sin and punishment, guilt and justification--perhaps Christianity's obsession with these things has clouded my perspective. Obsessed with my own guilt and forgiveness, I make a big deal out of forgiving the guilt of others.

My childhood in the jungle

When I was in the first grade, my best friend was Jonathan. We spent our recesses tromping through jungles and emitting spine-tingling calls of challenge as we swung through the trees on vines. Hey, they don't call it a jungle gym for nothing! Of course, we had a regular diet of Tarzan cartoons and live action Tarzan reruns starring Ron Ely on the Sunday afternoon TV matinee to fuel our imaginations.

There was one notable difference in our particular fantasy, however: Jonathan finally confided in me that he was actually Boy, Tarzan's young helper (Ward? Son? Who was Boy, anyway?). The details of why he was attending first grade at a small mid-western church school were never fully explained. Perhaps Tarzan and Jane had wanted him to have an American religious education before returning to Africa to help safeguard peace and justice in the jungle.

I never actually caught sight of N'Kima when Jonathan would try to point him out to me in the trees across the street from the school playground. N'Kima, in case you are wondering, is the capuchin monkey (although I believe I always thought he was a gibbon) that was Tarzan's right-hand primate in the filmation cartoons of the 70's. He filled much the same role as Cheeta the chimpanzee did in the live action movies. Presumably, N'Kima was there to watch over Boy (aka Jonathan) so that no mysterious jungle warriors or shamans found their way to Kansas City as part of a nefarious plot to enact vengeance upon the Lord of the Jungle through Boy. I'm not sure what N'Kima would have done had any evil villains actually appeared; perhaps he had Tarzan's pager number.

I can't say whether I truly believed Jonathan's stories. He was a fun playmate, I was a shy and awkward boy, and truth is a much more flexible thing for children than for adults. Why cause a fight and lose my best friend over something as minor as a few grandiose delusions? Looking back, I suspect his reasons for making the claims might have been rather similar to mine for going along with them.

I think I also went along with Jonathan's claims because because I identified with his feeling of displacement. Part of the mobile, lower middle class who thought they were buying into the American Dream, we found ourselves isolated from distant relatives--rootless strangers hiding in the lonely uniformity of suburban neighborhoods. Humans crave identity. If we don't find one in family and community, we'll use whatever comes to hand. Jungle boys dropped into America--yeah that felt about as authentic as anything else. At least we had a monkey looking out for us, albeit an invisible one as far as I was concerned. How many first-graders can say that?

Bon Appetit

I really enjoyed Jim Haynes' essay for NPR's series "This I Believe," Inviting the World To Dinner. He discusses his love of introducing people to people and his belief that we can love each other even if we do not understand each other.

African Peanut Soup

I didn't make this recipe up, just modified it to suit our needs. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 large red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 14 ounce can crushed tomatoes, with liquid
• 4 cups stock (vegetable or chicken)
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 2/3 cup smooth peanut butter (preferably without added sugar and preservatives)
• 1/2 cup instant brown rice
• salt to taste
• sherry to taste
  

1. Heat oil in a stockpot over medium-high heat. Cook the onion and bell pepper until lightly browned and tender, stirring in garlic near the end to prevent burning.
2. Stir in tomatoes, stock, pepper, and chili powder. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes.
3. Stir in rice, cover, and simmer until rice is tender.
   
4. Stir in peanut butter until well blended.
5. Add salt to taste and a dash of sherry.
6. Serve. Makes about 5 servings.

Winter Haiku

Silent snow and ice
Are everywhere--how noisy
My heartbeat, my breath!

Little House on the Prairie

OK--if you're my wife (or anyone else who harbors strong positive feelings for the Little House on the Prairie TV series), STOP READING NOW!!!!

You have been warned.

For the rest of you, here are "10 Surprising Wholesome Values Discovered in Old Episodes of 'Little House on the Prairie.'"

Two kinds of belief

I recently indulged myself with a series of comments on my friend Serenity's post about church-going and communion. Oddly enough, I found this quote that seems pertinent to those comments in the front of a paperback mystery I am reading. There are several Jim Corbett's, including a famous hunter and a famous prize-fighter, but I'm assuming that this Jim Corbett was the Quaker activist who was a co-founder of the Sanctuary movement.

There is a faith that is primarily belief. This kind of faith calls for definitive doctrines from which guiding objectives and priorities can be derived. And there is a faith that is primarily trust. This kind of faith expects to be guided by a unifying presence that enlivens each moment, breaks all borders, gathers us into communion with one another, and addresses us in all we meet. For faith as belief, it makes sense to ask how all we presently encounter can be used to achieve our (or God's) objecives; the present must be sacrificed to the future. For faith as trust, the future we hope for must emerge out of a fulfilled present; to treat any being or situation we meet only as a means to be used or as an obstacle to be eliminated attacks the historically unique liberating power with which every person and every community is endowed.

--Jim Corbett

Listening

Listening is one of the most powerful things we can do. It's also one of the hardest things to do, partly because its intimacy leads to responsibility and partly because it requires us to set aside what we have to say.

I see the power and the difficulty of listening at work all the time. People on two sides of some issue lock horns, hearing only what they say themselves. Sometimes a third party can come along and find a way through the impasse just by listening to what both sides are really saying.

I'm slowly learning to do this with my kids too, to listen not just to their words or their attitudes but to the hurt or fear or concern (however silly it seems to an adult) behind them. It's difficult because I have to think of them rather than myself, to set aside my own hurt at what they have said to me in order to listen to their heart, and to believe that what they have to say is at least as important as what I have to say. It is, of course, powerful for those same reasons.

This understanding of the power of listening is behind the StoryCorps project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to listening to, and recording, what everyday people all over the country have to say. These stories can be heard on public radio, read in a book called Listening Is an Act of Love, and will be archived in the Library of Congress. StoryCorps has declared November 28, the day after Thanksgiving, the National Day of Listening, an opportunity for us all to take time to listen to the people around us, to remind them, and ourselves, that everyone matters enough to be heard and remembered.

So, if you can tear yourself away from the after-Thanksgiving sales for a little while (who has money to spend anyway, right?), take some time to listen to someone, whether a grandparent, a child, a neighbor, or the person taking your order at a restaurant. Who knows? When you give the gift of listening, you just might walk away with an unexpected gift yourself.

Heaven and Hell

I stumbled across this on an internet forum:

A big, burly samurai comes to a Zen master and says,"Tell me the nature of heaven and hell."

The Zen master looks him in the face and says,"Why should I tell a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you? A worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything?"

Consumed by rage, the samurai draws his sword and
raises it to cut off the master's head. The Zen master says, "That's hell."
Instantly, the samurai understands that he has just created his own hell- black and hot, filled with hatred, self-protection, anger, and resentment. He sees that he was so deep in hell that he was ready to kill someone. Tears fill his eyes as he puts his palms together to bow in gratitude for this insight.
The Zen Master says, "That's heaven."

If you like Blue Man Group...

...you might enjoy this very creative video of three high school students performing on their PVC pipe instrument!