I work in an old convent
And right now, in the closet size chapel downstairs, a group of Vietnamese meet where they have been singing since I came into the office nearly 2 hours ago. It is good Friday. Whenever Christmas or Easter rolls around I always internally hope for it to somehow be different than the year before. I want to be impacted slightly more, I want the lightbulb in my head to go off suddenly and have a religious epiphany where god and life all of the sudden make sense and I never need convincing again.
I always come out sorely disappointed. Why should this surprise me though? Why should I hope for god to give me an extra special Easter when the rest of my days are spent occupied with other distractions?
So I signed this petition last night to forgive Osama Bin Laden. Then I read this poignant piece by a friend and just finished emailing the website administrator to remove my name in light of Dry Bones Dance's statement on forgiveness who said:
We can only forgive people for the ways that they have harmed us. We CANNOT forgive someone for the harm they have done to another person. If you had a loved one die on 9/11, then okay, you get to sign that letter. Otherwise, I think that kind of forgiveness is cheap. I could say that I forgive Osama, but that would require nothing of me. Truth is, he didn't hurt me all that much. I didn't know anyone who died, and I already knew the world was bloody and unfair, so it didn't even shake the way I see things. For me, the biggest effect of 9/11 was how the funding for non-profits took a nosedive afterwards. I don't hate him, but I do believe he should be found, imprisoned for the rest of his life, and all his assets confiscated. I also think he's a pretty evil man, although like all of us, not beyond redemption.
I don't know how to forgive. It has never been required of me. One of MLK's writings on forgiveness describe how he had to fast in jail for over a week in order to come to a place where he could forgive his oppressors and captors. I can remember reading that and thinking, I have no idea what forgiveness is.
How easy it is to declare my forgiveness for Osama with a few keystrokes because I momentarily thought it was the progressive Christian thing to do; but it requires nothing of me. He never directly affected me personally and I don't know anyone that died on 9/11. It's cheap. It doesn't matter.
Who am I to think I currently have the capacity to forgive someone such as Bin Laden. There have been slews of evil dictators through the years and even now that I've never bothered to forgive. I couldn't even forgive the Pizza Hut delivery guy when he brought me the wrong pizza. No, I had to write pizza hut corporate offices to declare the injustice I'd experienced and get a free voucher for a pizza the next time I ordered. I have so much vengefulness in my heart that I've encountered over the past few years. A lot of my stories are humorous in that disturbing sense. Let's just say Pizza Hut isn't the only place that has received letters from me. My husband on the other hand just oozes forgiveness. I don't get it. As a boy he walked to school over dead bodies, had his family repeatedly threatened by a corrupt government, was messed with in ways children should never be messed with, and the list goes on. I have so much to learn from him.
Regardless, I'm tired of cheapness. Cheap Easter, cheap resurrection, cheap grace. I'm not into that anymore. Give me the blood. Give me the challenge. Give me the god that was crucified in the midst of every day life which hardly stopped or took notice of the momentous event that would determine humanity's fate. I have spent sufficient time not taking notice. It is very easy to live life unintentionally .
May my remembrance of this year's resurrection be mindful in the midst of the mundane.
I always come out sorely disappointed. Why should this surprise me though? Why should I hope for god to give me an extra special Easter when the rest of my days are spent occupied with other distractions?
So I signed this petition last night to forgive Osama Bin Laden. Then I read this poignant piece by a friend and just finished emailing the website administrator to remove my name in light of Dry Bones Dance's statement on forgiveness who said:
We can only forgive people for the ways that they have harmed us. We CANNOT forgive someone for the harm they have done to another person. If you had a loved one die on 9/11, then okay, you get to sign that letter. Otherwise, I think that kind of forgiveness is cheap. I could say that I forgive Osama, but that would require nothing of me. Truth is, he didn't hurt me all that much. I didn't know anyone who died, and I already knew the world was bloody and unfair, so it didn't even shake the way I see things. For me, the biggest effect of 9/11 was how the funding for non-profits took a nosedive afterwards. I don't hate him, but I do believe he should be found, imprisoned for the rest of his life, and all his assets confiscated. I also think he's a pretty evil man, although like all of us, not beyond redemption.
I don't know how to forgive. It has never been required of me. One of MLK's writings on forgiveness describe how he had to fast in jail for over a week in order to come to a place where he could forgive his oppressors and captors. I can remember reading that and thinking, I have no idea what forgiveness is.
How easy it is to declare my forgiveness for Osama with a few keystrokes because I momentarily thought it was the progressive Christian thing to do; but it requires nothing of me. He never directly affected me personally and I don't know anyone that died on 9/11. It's cheap. It doesn't matter.
Who am I to think I currently have the capacity to forgive someone such as Bin Laden. There have been slews of evil dictators through the years and even now that I've never bothered to forgive. I couldn't even forgive the Pizza Hut delivery guy when he brought me the wrong pizza. No, I had to write pizza hut corporate offices to declare the injustice I'd experienced and get a free voucher for a pizza the next time I ordered. I have so much vengefulness in my heart that I've encountered over the past few years. A lot of my stories are humorous in that disturbing sense. Let's just say Pizza Hut isn't the only place that has received letters from me. My husband on the other hand just oozes forgiveness. I don't get it. As a boy he walked to school over dead bodies, had his family repeatedly threatened by a corrupt government, was messed with in ways children should never be messed with, and the list goes on. I have so much to learn from him.
Regardless, I'm tired of cheapness. Cheap Easter, cheap resurrection, cheap grace. I'm not into that anymore. Give me the blood. Give me the challenge. Give me the god that was crucified in the midst of every day life which hardly stopped or took notice of the momentous event that would determine humanity's fate. I have spent sufficient time not taking notice. It is very easy to live life unintentionally .
May my remembrance of this year's resurrection be mindful in the midst of the mundane.
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