GOD’S FORGIVENESS IS TOTAL

There are times in our lives when we have done something that we, on after-thought, ask ourselves how could have done such a thing that we wonder how God could ever forgive us. We knew better before we did what we did. We knew it was wrong. We knew someone would be hurt. What made it worse was the ones we hurt were the ones we loved the most and yet we still did it.

How could God forgive us? How could those we hurt forgive us? How could we forgive ourselves? How can we live with ourselves after doing what we did? What we did was not a crime for which we would be prosecuted and jailed. It was simply a very selfish act that hurt someone we loved. And that made it so hard for us to not only live with ourselves but to wonder if forgiveness was possible.

It has to be because God’s forgiveness is not only possible, it always is and it is always total. And it has to be, God has to forgive us totally, without and punishment or revenge or repayment demanded before it is given. Why? Because if God’s forgiveness is not total, if God demands some kind of punishment before forgiveness, then the same could be demanded of us and we could demand it from those who hurt us.

Forgiveness has to come with no strings attached. Why? Several reasons. First, we cannot undo what we did. It was done and it is over with and we cannot go back in time to make it not happen. A done deed is done. If forgiveness demands that we undo what has been done, forgiveness is impossible. We know that. Thus, we must be open to forgiving and being forgiven.

Second, if forgiveness somehow demands payment of some sort be extracted before it is given, no kind of payment can erase what has been done that needs forgiveness. An eye-for-and-eye does not give the one who lost the eye that person’s sight back. Retribution cannot be a demand for forgiveness because retribution is impossible.

Third, and most importantly, love demands it. God’s forgiveness is total because God loves us totally and unconditionally. Does that mean that God doesn’t care what we do, the sins we commit, the hurt we have caused by our deliberate selfishness? Of course not. But God knows we cannot undo what we have done. And the only way we can move on after we have come to our senses and realized the hurt we have done is to be forgiven and forgiven totally with no strings attached.

As God loves so must we. Our love does not give others permission to hurt us nor does the love of others for us give us permission to hurt them. It does mean that when we have been hurt or we have done the hurting, knowing that God forgives us totally is the first step in allowing us to move on. Forgiving others and being forgiven out of love is the next step in allowing us to move. May we so love and so forgive as God loves.

THE DEPRESSION AND THE DEPRESSED

Years ago during discussions of the budget our retired Treasurer used to remind those of us who are slightly younger than he, that despite the rosy picture in income one must always be cautious. And in case we had any doubts about the fact that good can turn to bad he always reminded us that he had seen it happen up close and personal. He had lived through, he had experienced, the Depression.

           

Experience is a wonderful teacher. Sometimes, it seems, it is the only teacher. We tell our children about the mistakes we made, warn them not to do as we did, try to make sure they don't get hurt as we did. But all too often our warnings fall on deaf ears. No matter what our age, we still want to believe that we are immune from making the same mistakes as our elders especially when everything seems so rosy.

           

Why we learn more from the bad than from the good is a question for the psychologists. But we do. It seems that it is only when we lose what we have – and what we probably have not appreciated while we had it – that we suddenly realize how blessed we were.

           

My mother's generation knew firsthand what it meant to be without, what it meant to lose what you had taken for granted for so long. The learned what it meant to struggle, sometimes struggle to survive just for today. And they did. They came through that struggle stronger and better and certainly more appreciative of what they had. They were always a little gun shy, never counting their cards or even their blessings, simply thankful for what they had each day knowing that tomorrow it might all change.

           

And if it did change tomorrow, if it did go from good to bad, they carried on. They survived. They did not suddenly get depressed. After all, they survived The Great Depression. It couldn’t get any worse.

           

It would be easy for me to say that my children don't understand all this. But I would also be less than honest to say that I probably don't either. The generations post-Depression probably have more cases of depression, more depressed people, than the people of the Depression could ever imagine. Yes, many people of my parents' generation were overcome by the tragedy that occurred. But most survived and were better for it.

           

No one of us wants bad things to happen to us. No one of us wants to be without. We want all our wants, not just our needs, to be filled. But the more they are, the worse off we are when they are not. Depression sets in.

           

Maybe that's why Lent is such a good idea. Maybe we really need a time of self-denial: self-inflicted denial. Lent is a time to train ourselves to be without, to live with less, to want and need less, just in case. The people of the Depression had a very long Lent, one which they would never have chosen, but one that made them the better for it. My treasurer long ago tried to remind us that we may need to live less well even if we can afford to live better, if only to learn how – and maybe save ourselves a lot of pain  and depression later.     

DANCING IN THE RAIN

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once opined that “into each life some rain must fall.” If we view that rain as something that we would rather avoid at the moment, some trial or tribulation that we would rather do without, he was correct. For whatever reason we only seem to learn from those trials and tribulations that happen at precisely the wrong times in our lives, times when we need to be about something more important. That’s life.

Then there is Vivian Greene whose take on this is: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” Those rainy days will pass. They always do. Yet sometimes we can’t wait them out. We have to plunge in through the rain. We have no other choice. We have to earn how to make the best out of a bad situation. In other words, we need to learn how to dance in all that rain.

That’s easier said than done. Sometimes the rain seems like a deluge. No, it is a deluge. There are times when we are simply overwhelmed by those trials and tribulations. What makes them even worse is that we have done little or nothing to bring them on and, even worse, feel that we have done little or nothing to deserve what is happing to us. We are being rained upon for no apparent reason.

And we are supposed to dance in spite of it all? Pretend that we are having a good time or something approaching a good time? And even if we believe that we are not exempt from such times, that we must be rained upon if we are to learn, that knowledge and understanding in and of itself usually does not make the dancing come any easier. It is still raining and we are still getting wet, soaked to our very bones. There is no umbrella to prevent us from getting wet.

We simply have to learn how to dance in the rain that will come our way in one way or another and for which we can do nothing about except dance. Is it about trying to make the best out of a bad situation? Is it about making lemonade out of lemons? Well, yes. That is all we sometimes can do. The problem, whatever it is – sickness, loss of a job or a loved one, a disability that is long-term or permanent, the list is long – is there and it will not go away.

The truth is that if we do not learn to dance through the rain, it will eventually overwhelm us and make the situation worse. That does not mean that it will be easy, that the pain will somehow lesson or even go away, that the problem will suddenly be resolved. Miracles happen, but expecting or waiting for one doesn’t solve the problem at hand: dealing with the pain in the rain.

The solution? Finding dance partners. We are not meant to dance alone. Finding those partners helps us make it through the rain. They are there for us as we are for them whenever the rain starts to fall.

THE WISDOM OF THE AGED

One time when my Mom was in her nineties and going to the doctor, her PCP told her that there were some things wrong with her that could be treated. When she asked him what would happen if she did not, he told her that she might get dizzy and fall. She replied, “I’ll take my chances.”

Arlena’s Mom, who is almost 97, goes to her PCP on a regular basis and is always told she needs one kind of exam or another. She never has them done. Her reason? I’m not paying for that hospital’s new building.”

The wisdom of the aged. Most people think that when we get older, we lose or minds. Yes, that does happen. Our minds do slow down, not so much because we are getting older or because disease sets in. It is because we have so much experience stored in our brains that it sometimes seems we forgotten something rather than the fact that it takes just a little longer to retrieve it – like it does when our computer’s memory is almost full.

But it’s all there: all those experiences we have had over the years, experiences that make us smarter than those younger than we are, the ones who question our sanity. We learn not only from or experiences but also, and more importantly, from our mistakes. One of the great parts about getting older is that we can own up to our mistakes and readily admit them.

Yes, many of them were the results of being young and foolish, something that the present young and foolish are reluctant to admit. Some of them were the result of honest mistakes and, again, something those younger than us often reluctant to admit. They seem to think, as we once did, that we should be embarrassed by our mistakes and failures when what they were were learning experiences. If we did not learn from them, it was our own damn fault and for which we ultimately paid the price.

We learned. We became wiser in the process. We learned that our PCP may find something wrong with us and lots of medicine and tests and even procedures might, just might, make our lives a little better, but we’ll pass and take our chances. We’ve lived a good life and are thankful. A classmate who is a now-retired orthopedic surgeon says that after 70, everything is grace, namely life itself.

We aged people, and I can say “aged” even though Arlena’s Mom still considers us kids, have a lot of wisdom to share with those who are willing to listen. We have been there and done that as they say. We are proud of our successes, embarrassed by our past foolishness, thankful that we survived them and grateful for our undeserved blessings.

And even though I don’t think I am old, I readily admit that I am a lot older than my mind wants to admit. That, too, is grace.

LOST IN A CELLPHONE WORLD

They are everywhere in almost everyone’s hands in almost every place we are: in church, at the opera, in class, at work, at play, in bed, at the dinner table. Everywhere. We have become addicted to them almost as if we were addicted to any drug, sometimes even worse. We are cellphone addicts whether we admit it or not.

Some of our local school boards are debating whether or not to delay the starting of school because too many students are not getting enough sleep. They’re not getting enough sleep because they are staying up into the middle of the night all too often on their cellphones chatting about nothing that is of any consequence whatsoever. If their parents would talk the phone off of them when it was bedtime, I dare say they would go into DTs. The addiction is so profound.

Teenagers are not the only ones so addicted. Go into any restaurant and note that the art of conversation has come and gone. Everyone, it seems, is on the phone. Instead of actually having a real vocal conversation, they are typing words that cannot truly convey real meaning. In my past life when I was actively seeking a position, I used to have phone interviews with search committees. I hated them even if I knew they were doing the best they could with limited financial resources. Real conversation comes with body language which phones, cell or otherwise, cannot convey.

And as much as I would like to think that we older people, retired and all, are exempt from this addiction, we are not. My phone goes with me wherever I go and I feel naked if I don’t have it with me. That is true even though I know none of the emails I receive is a life-and-death message. Nor are any of the phone calls. The caller can always leave a voice mail. Hardly any ever do and when they do, it is usually an appointment reminder that I already have in my calendar – on my phone, of course.

I could rant on even if I am not quite as guilty as many others. The guilt, however, is in degree not in kind. And it is not going to get better any time soon. We seem to be lost in this cellphone world and have little or no inclination to find a way out or even a need to do so. What has happened, I think, is that we have lost not only the art of conversation but the cellphone has fostered and even condoned some very, very uncivil words that we would have previously been loath to utter in public or in person.

It now seems to be okay to call names, spread lies, demean others because it is safe to do so on the phone. The reader can’t hit or hurt me except by demeaning me and my opinions in return. That should not be acceptable, but it seems to have become such. I wonder what would happen if we all, every one of us, would put away our cellphones for one week and have real conversations with one another. The DTs would be there, but we would all have them. I would have to use a paper calendar, which I did for many, many years and survived. But think what a wonderful world that would be. (I know: dream on.)