Forgiveness

Famed English poet Alexander Pope once famously wrote "To err, is human; to forgive, divine."  One does not realize the depth of these words until you have, like many other things, experienced it firsthand.  Please be advised that I am not looking for religious significance in this statement, I am about as far away from being considered a religious person as you can get.  I have experienced firsthand the hypocrisy, guilt and contradictions of the so called "religious person" or even "spiritual people".  When one frees themselves of the fundamentalist guilt we have been taught, one is at last free to live a moral, fulfilling life.  But that's another story.  Humans are not perfect creatures by any means, we mess a lot of things up here and there.  How many times has one done or said something that we shouldn't have, don't we all have so many dirty little secrets no one knows about.  We have all been on the giving and receiving end of cruel mistreatment.  And we have become who we are today partially because of said cruel mistreatment giving or receiving.  To make mistakes comes naturally, and they are either tremendous or common.  Of this I am no stranger.

Forgiveness, however, is another matter.  When, how and why does one forgive another for what happened?  And what motivates the decision to do it?  It is giving it to someone who does not truly deserve it in many cases.  If people deserved forgiveness, we would not get it, would we?  Instead a few are forced into suffering and pain, and some are seemingly free of it to live a life without these concerns or experiences.  Of them, I am truly envious.  As one walks around in constant pain from the barbed wire one has wrapped around their torso, the pins and needles you are walking on, and experiencing the quicklime you threw in your eyes to blind you, you feel not just your suffering but that of all those around you.  Some are evil by nature, they have come to laugh at you.  Some are so angry at themselves that they want others to feel the same suffering they do.  Even if it's people who are laughing at you or watching out of morbid curiosity, you can easily become as bitter, angry and abusive.  You allow yourself this behavior for a few days, or you become afraid of others.  And so many become the bitter, the angry, the demanding that they come first.  And Hazel, the secular son of God, even went so far as to say it : Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

The other day I got an instant message and a text from someone from the past.  Without going into too many details, this was something that ended in a poor fashion between me and him.  Love is hard between two people, and sometimes things do not work.  This was one of them.  After almost two and a half to three years of silence, he reached out and said he wanted to see me.  I agreed to it.  Today we met at a coffee shop, he said he wanted to explain himself and his actions.  I won't tell the whole story, but essentially he said he had made a terrible mistake and so much was his fault.  Of this I do not argue.  I also have also made mistakes, not with him but with others past and present.  We say we will never treat others so badly as those who hurt us have treated us.  Not true.  I've been bad, I'm not perfect.  Others have been as well.  We learn, or we try to.  After he said his piece I acknowledged him, I said life is complicated and the world is full of lonely people, he and I are no exception to this and partially why I agreed to this meeting.  Those who think they come first or the only ones live in fool's paradise.  I took his hand in mine and said "We're good."

And not to tie in something a-ha to it, it just so happened that the new album, Cast in Steel, arrived at my front door when I came home.  For those who have never experienced or truly heard, this is not some boy band, this is music for your soul.  And never did the words of one song hit me so hard as they did when I gave it the first listen as I had been craving for weeks on end, of their song "The Wake" as it did this afternoon.  It was out of me, I let go of my hurt and false pride today in this situation.

Can't change the one you are
Can't change the one you love
Lower your guard
I've made a few mistakes
I'll tell you what it takes
Under the stars

Have you seen the other me at times?
Walking an even looser line

Baby this is a wake
You and I will not escape
As time goes by

The world's never been older
Your head on my shoulder
So close your eyes

Stung by normality
Wronged by your family
As time goes by

Cannot change the one you love
From inside or from above
Just hold him tight

Baby we're on a wake
You and I will not escape
Just close your eyes

Life is good.