This morning I broke through. I broke through, at least, to another layer–a deeper layer. Of freedom. We talk in spiritual communities about the importance of forgiveness. In some conscious communities there is a belief that there is no need to forgive. That we make choices, on some level, that bring experiences into our lives from which we need to learn. So it is not what we perceive someone does to us but that we invited these experiences into our lives in order to grow. This is not a comfortable notion for many. I get that. Whether one agrees with that belief or not, many can at least believe that our experiences–what we label adversities–are actually opportunities. And though they may produce great pain, from the parched and cracked condition of our hurt, rich fruit can birth. This is true in my life.
March-April-May-June are anniversary months for me. It is a year ago that my father died, that I realized I must end my marriage and that I began the process of finding a new place to live and moving out into my own. For the first time in 26 years, I no longer owned a home. I was again a single mother. Shit….It has been a long, arduous year of journeying to the center of my soul. Of going beneath that dried up surface and finding the unhealthy nutrients that poisoned me–including a history of choices and the seed from where they were born. It has been a year of learning how to garden anew–to plant, water, nurture. To truly love and to care.
And this morning, I got it on more than just a knowledge level–not the kind I got in all my years of seminar slutting–but on a real, change-producing experiential level. I still held pain in my heart for the man in which I had placed all my dreams. But, I got it that I held the nutrients that would water the soil and unlock my ability to grow deeper. And the answer was in forgiveness.
I made a choice. I made choices. I can hurl blame and wave a victim card. But, it all comes back to me. And now it is time to forgive. But the forgiveness is not for him. I have tended the row of compassion in my garden where he is concerned. I have nurtured it for all the people in my life–my parents and other past relationships–for people who did the best that they could. Those who were on their own journey and brought to me and loved me from their own fountains of pain and brokenness, unknowingly. The secret ingredient to make my garden flourish was/is forgiveness. But, it is not forgiveness of another. It is forgiveness for me.
Mercy. Starts. At. Home.
