ADVICE IS CHEAP…
…THAT’S EASY FOR YOU TO SAY
In the first chapter of this book I apologized to you for always giving advice. Yet, tucked away in these chapters, hiding under stories of my mistakes and the lessons learned are bits of advice. I’m a parent. It’s hard to hold myself down!
After more than ten chapters, a pattern evolves: Mom makes a mistake, Mom sees the mistake, Mom learns a lesson. It all seems so easy. So predictable. So inevitable. Unfortunately, it isn’t ever that straight forward.
Yes, I was terribly embarrassed when I smashed Humpty Dumpty’s brother, but the pain, embarrassment and lesson were squished into 60 seconds of instant insight. The crowd around me knew I was a fool. I was able to turn red, squeak out an apology, turn and show my pained look to the audience, and then move on with life. It was over.
It is so much more painful and embarrassing to sit in a quiet moment of reflection and look back 15 years ago to the day when I gave a brilliant pick-me-up, inspirational speech to my real estate buddies during a recession. In a flash, the brilliance disappears, and I suddenly see myself 15 years younger…ignorant, self-important, and simplistic.
Now I’m embarrassed, but the crowd is not there. I realize that the real estate buddies have known of my ignorance these past 15 years, and I’m not able to apologize. I have to push the embarrassment away each day, hoping that these friends were not too offended by my over-exuberant optimism.
My humility continues to daily grow when I think of all the many things I have done during these many years that would make me blush…if I could only remember them and if only I could see myself as others saw me.
Today I have my little book of mistakes, recognized and remembered, cataloged for your benefit. Each mistake, with its own lesson. Life didn’t happen, though, quite that smoothly. When I met my wild-haired friend Bill in San Francisco I felt ill at ease and troubled, but there were no blinking theater lights telling me: there’s a lesson here!
We drove away from the theater, our minds on Golden Gate Park, Coit Tower, and Fisherman’s Wharf. Bill would come into my mind at odd moments, and I would worry for his sake and wonder. Life always interrupted. Eventually, a day came when I decided that Bill’s fate had already been decided, and I had to stop thinking about him with worry for his future. He was and is Bill, without any contribution from me, and the only thing left for me to do is someday seek out a history report from a mutual friend, “What happened to Bill?”
Today’s lessons are extensions of regret that I did not take the time to seriously inquire into his well-being, that I wasn’t able to recognize the true peril of his situation, that I never moved my worry into action, and that I rationalize my inaction by trying to demonstrate that we can’t save someone who doesn’t want to save him/herself. I was wrong, I am wrong today. Bill is still teaching me lessons, 25 years later. I think about him, write about him, and worry about him, even if it’s only worry about a past that can’t be changed, a past marred by my lack of action.
The hardest lessons are those that live in my mind, lessons wasted because I never put them into action. What good is a lesson if you don’t take steps to make the lesson live and to make your life and actions a witness to your learning?
Of all of these lessons learned, but unlived, forgiveness is my greatest failure. I yearn for forgiveness and have been blessed by forgiveness. I remember clearly the rude, self-centered, irresponsible 20-year-old girl who yelled at her mom and dad. She yelled because they wouldn’t let her use their car. She yelled because they asked her to quit coming home at 3:00 a.m. She yelled at them because they wanted her to let them know if she would be home for dinner. They were paying for her college education, letting her stay in their home rent-free, letting her drive a car they bought for her, eat the food they bought for her, and spend the money they gave her.
Where would I be today if these parents, my mother and father, had not forgiven me? I will forever be indebted to them, less for their money than for their willingness to forgive and forget, their willingness to let me move on, to grow, and to become a better person than I had been.
But don’t ask me to forgive. This week on television Sally Fields is playing a mom who is out to kill her daughter’s murderer. Against all values I profess, I hope she succeeds, and I have to mentally cut off my thoughts and remind myself of forgiveness.
How do others manage? I read in Good Housekeeping of a woman who rejoiced that she was able to meet and embrace the man who raped and tried to kill her. It was her final step to releasing herself from the horrors of that experience, moving on with her life with hope. Forgiveness was her liberation.
I can believe in forgiveness. Jesus preached it. I admire others who forgive rapists, murderers, even Hitler.
But I can’t put forgiveness into action in my own life. My own sister. I would forgive her IF:
- she would admit she was wrong…
- she would apologize, too…
- she had suffered enough…
- God would pay her back…
I can give her pretend forgiveness. Yes, she’s a person, too. God loves her (darnn it). She is a good person with many good qualities (if you look hard enough). She’s had her share of hurt and suffering (well, she deserves it). We’re both the same (hardly). I can forgive her (even though she doesn’t deserve it). I always turn into a judgmental, spiteful, unforgiving person holding back on all the love that God commands for us to give…waiting for her to deserve it…
My first step along this dark path is and must be for me to beg forgiveness from God for this failing. Oh, Lord, I’m a sinner and I know it. I’m weak, I blunder, and I fail like ships that sail on the ocean, tossed and embroiled in a gale. The next and hardest step is to ask forgiveness from Diane.
Diane, whatever it is in years past that I might have done to put hurt into your life, I ask your forgiveness. Most of all, I ask forgiveness today for my sin that keeps me in judgment of you, waiting upon you to improve yourself, forgetting that you live in the shadows of my failings. I fail to accept you as God’s equal. I fail to seek you out for love. I fail to rejoice in your honor. I fail to hold you in my thoughts with love and honor. I fail to send you in my prayers to our God of mercy and compassion, and I fail to enact all of these heavenly duties here on earth in spite of life’s best lessons.
Lastly, I think these words, I speak these words, I write these words, but Diane, forgive me, that I do not mean these words with the fullness and sincerity that God requires. Forgive me.
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Forgiveness…
from In God’s Care
March 22
A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing to another man than he has to knock him down. —Dr. Samuel Johnson
Disrespect can be as damaging when quietly conveyed as when forcefully shown. We don’t have to physically push someone aside to express our contempt or anger. We’re probably done it many times by icy glares or being vacant-eyed, as the person “deserving” of our contempt was invisible.
Hatefulness in any form is never justified. It’s life-threatening, in fact, because it deadens our spirit and the spirit of the person we direct it at. Not only does the other person feel invalidated and violated, but we are diminished by missing an opportunity to know the love that’s our birthright from God.
An act of love is an invitation to come alive. We have the opportunity to celebrate life through loving actions toward others. In so doing we celebrate our own life in God.
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Postscript: God is merciful. And he does answer prayer. Many such prayers of mine have made their way to Our Father, and He indeed has granted me the forgiveness I requested. If you are in need of forgiveness, I recommend the book of a dear friend who can guide you on this path:
Soaring Above the Ashes on the Wings of Forgiveness
by Kitty Chappell
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