An Essay A Day For A Year
By Roe
Day 40 February 9, 2012
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I was musing a couple recently who were actively working on their relationship. In the years that they had been together there had been many ethical and moral transgressions where they had caused each other deep pain. Over the years since those pains this couple had followed many paths to healing, religious and otherwise. One of the paths they had followed was a path of mutual recognition of their acts and each other’s responsibilities in working towards forgiveness. They stated that they had long forgiven each other on the bigger and deeper issues like each of their infidelities, and now that trust was rebuilt and reestablished they felt stronger for the experiences. In the many days that we were together I had private time with each of them where the man and woman respectively were encouraged to “let it all hang out”. When we were once again reunited and each of them shared their experiences, the couple suddenly began to quarrel, and then fight, and then effectively break down and become highly emotional and bitter with each other. In anger and very deep hurt, the lady screamed out, “I have not been forgiven, I have been fake-given!” And the husband felt the same.
In the months that followed the couple realized and admitted that the many Christian fellowship forgiveness groups, therapists and counselors, and many books they had read and followed on the concept of forgiveness had mislead them. They had both “practiced” forgiveness and “followed” forgiveness and “hoped for” forgiveness and “believed in” forgiveness, but in fact had not forgiven each other, but instead both of them had very deep and also unconscious scars and grudges against each other. I suggested that they first both reestablish their vows to each other and that a new commitment to a new process be begun where absolute transparency and honesty be practiced with the intent of healing, and the motive of trying to stay together. Once this was done, I recommended absolute transparency and honesty between them, and that they begin the process of taking the lids off of all of the cans of worms, and all the Pandora’s boxes. I suggested that they welcome each other’s free expression, and value and approve of each other’s considerable pain. In effect, get ready for it all to come out and finally hit the fan, and welcome and honor getting it all over each other.
What happened next is an almost unbelievable level of rage and blaming, judgment and accusation, sorrow and regret. Without the renewed vows and intent of repair and motive of staying together, neither felt or wanted to persevere or survive the mutual onslaught and process of repair. Both of them entered into a terrifying battleground it seemed to them of very old pain going back long before their relationship, and misconceptions and misunderstandings of each other driven by unknown and unseen forces they had never known. The couple entered into a very deep period of mourning and grief, for and about and against each other, and for and about and against many tragedies suffered long before they met each other. Like a dance of connection and alienation, a foot race of escape and then reuniting, and a party of hatred and reconciliation in love, the couple finally suffered each other and their mutual histories. Finally, after many harrowing and very sad weeks and months, the light of compassion and empathy began to open up the natural spring of forgiveness that only flows from the inside out. Miraculously, this very brash and brave couple are still slogging it out in the trenches of grieving and then integrating newfound value for each other’s problems with each other, and gifts to each other.
They realized that forgiveness is not an act of the mind. You cannot forgive by thinking, or willing, or wanting to forgive. Forgiveness is not a thought, or a belief, or an act, or an action. Forgiveness is a natural relief and release of the heart, that the mind cannot access or control. The mind can surely manipulate ideas and reference points, the mind can block and imagine and hide and run and lie, but the mind cannot forgive or release the heart. Only the heart can forgive, and that can only happen as a result of grieving and mourning. When the heart is wounded there is trauma and deprivation, and unfulfilled needs. When the heart is wounded there is a bloody wound and a scar, not unlike any physical injury. The mind does not heal the heart, and the manipulation of thoughts and ideas and beliefs cannot heal the bloody wounds of the heart. Only the expression of hurt in rage and sorrow, and the tears of sorrow and grief and mourning can heal the heart, and the mind knows not of the acts of the heart.
No wound or scar is an event entirely of its own. Every human wound and scar of the heart is like a country back road on the map, and all country back roads lead to larger arteries and eventually full highways. Every wound of the heart is related to and eventually joins related historical tragedies in the heart. All infidelities and transgressions of ethics and morals in the present pale by comparison to the original prototype experiences of birth and early childhood, and all related heart wounds are stored, related spiral memories in the heart. Forgiveness need not be willed or desired or even understood. Forgiveness is not the issue or hope or expectation at all, but the natural expression of healed pain. When pain is felt in and by the heart, only crying and grieving and the expression of hurt begin the process of healing. When the heart is healed through grieving and mourning, the result is the natural return to the flow of love, and the natural flow of love after a deep heart wound is called forgiveness.
Jesus and every other prophet speaks of a central tenet of forgiveness, but as a result that one thinks about and believes. Tragically the prophets do not speak of the unprecedented suffering and sacrifice made to realize the forgiveness that flowed from the inside out. Beyond the idea that Jesus is a hopeful invention of the human psyche, if he did live, he surely disappeared into the desert for many years. And during those years he devoured life and was devoured by life. During those years he caused suffering and suffered for and from others perhaps like never before in history. And the tears and mourning of this man’s eyes turned the desert green he wept so much pain. He spoke of forgiveness as a truth, but only after it flowed from his cleansed and fully grieved heart. We can all do that too, but not by reading a well meaning book, or practicing his resultant philosophy. We too must face life head on with no lids on any cans or boxes, and face ourselves and pain and suffering with a courageous and fearless heart. And like the Phoenix, out of the death of our own selves in grieving and mourning, we rise again to fly with a repaired and more purely loving heart.
When we finally hear of the great concepts of the human heart like forgiveness, we hear and see and feel it as a result, and not a manifestation of the well spring of the heart itself. Forgiveness is love that is injured, and then love that is grieved and healed, and then love that is once again pure. Forgiveness is love. Fake-give-ness, as the lady said, is the wishful thinking of the mind hiding or unknowing or not admitting wounded love. And the only way to return to love is to walk into its shadow called pain with rage and tears blazing, and eventually, from the inside out, after seemingly dying from the pain, love purely again. In order to forgive another we must also forgive ourselves. Part of the grieving and mourning process is the natural realization that there are no real victims and perpetrators unless we are each both. There is no act without a supporting act, and no result without a supporting cause. Pride and indignation and arrogance are blocks to the process of grieving, and defensive ideas of the mind to manage pain and not face it.
For-give-ness is a gift, and gifts can only come from the heart. Fake-give-ness is the well meaning idea of handling pain while at the same time being terrified of it. Fake-give-ness is frozen and denied pain, handed over as a well meaning, but in the end fake decision made by the brain, while the heart never forgets. I would love to say that all is forgiven, but I know that the process of grieving is a full process just like when a loved one dies. In the meantime, as long as I know that the intent is to help and heal, and the motive is to stay together, I advocate that couples hold onto each other’s hands and brace themselves as they stand in front of their own fans. Me and my wife have a lot of experience at that one. Look around next time you see a proud Phoenix flying, and underneath her or him you will see a lake of tears filled with many empty cans of worms and empty boxes with no more Pandoras, and a fan still blowing everything around. Maybe that is the wind that he or she sails upon.
See you tomorrow.
youpersonalmuse@gmx.com
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