Please Forgive Me

It's almost 1am, Central Time. I'm a day and 7 hours away from my first midterm. I am 200 pages deep in my readings for Wednesday's classes and still not done, but this has been gnawing at me for the past 2 weeks. 

I kind of wanted to talk about forgiveness for the longest time. Two weeks ago, the gospel (and therefore the homily) was on Forgiveness. God forgives everybody, but yet, we as humans don't. Are we saying that we're better than God? The Deacon goes on to say that, "It doesn't matter if the other person is sorry." Recite the Lord's Prayer... remember the words... "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." The other person caused you hurt, does he not cause you more hurt if you don't forgive? Our job is to save ourselves, not the other person. How can you fly to heaven if there is so much heaviness in your soul? 

But I dismissed the whole forgiveness thing. I am bitter. I don't want to forget. 

Today, during my dinner ritual--eating dinner while watching an old episode of X-Men (I'm going through the old cartoons), I almost choked when I saw the title: Bloodlines. It first starts out by some anti-mutant vigilante finding out that not only does he have a mutant father (who he knows about), BUT he has a mutant mother and half-brother as well. He goes to destroy his new-found family to regain his mutant-hating status. The second half of the plot line was that Nightcrawler finally gets to confront the mother who abandoned him. At the moment of truth he says something like, "I pray to God that He will give me the strength to forgive you, then I will pray to God that He give you the strength to forgive yourself."

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.  ~Wayne Dyer

I wonder if all the negativity that happens around/to me is because I refuse to let go of the negativity of my past. It has made me who I am. Can I accept the past without condoning the distasteful way that I was treated? Can I release the negative energy and still keep the strength that it gave me? I don't know... but I'm going to try.

Being accountable for myself and my actions and reactions, I can only change me. I can't change the past. I can't change the FUCKED UP people who chose to bully a shy kid. I can't change who I'm related to. But I sure as hell can make sure that the kid in the shadowy corner of my soul gets a little light, she deserves at least that much. 

Do I dare give myself a Forgiveness challenge? Maybe. This time in my life is all about transformation... I guess I should transform the mind as well as the heart.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

Constant vigilance. Be aware. Be safe.

******

It has been 10 years. It feels so distant. It feels like a lifetime ago, and yet, I almost remember that day in its entirety. 9/11 flipped the world around, especially for the high school graduating class of 2002. I don't say that because it was my senior year, or to make us sound more important than we really are. But we were the first adolescents to turn into adults post-9/11. Our academic futures, our careers and our political stances were all shaped by what happened on 10am Eastern Time that morning.

My creative writing teacher told us, a few months afterwards, that he thought that this event would be our Vietnam. We were silent in our thoughts; politically correct, I supposed. But while our voices were nonexistent, our actions said everything. A year later the United States entered into enemy turf preemptively. I wonder, had it not been for the attack on American soil, would we have had enough troops to enter a foreign territory? 

Yes, our world has changed dramatically since it happened. Do you remember what it was like before this? Sadly, I cannot. All I can remember are reds, oranges and yellows. No working bathrooms in underground subways. System-wide "emergency" drills in college. The randomly parked bomb squad van near the school's stadium. The paranoia of going to beloved landmarks. The fear of losing family and friends to a Lo-Fi massacre.

Are we safer now than we were before? Will we ever get that sense of security back? All I know is that I'm hoping nothing happens tomorrow or ever again. Both sides cannot continue to devolve. No God would want this for any of His people. No economy can financially support the hate. But human nature innately forces us to defend our rights and privileges. Everyone loses, no one wins.

Clockwatching

It must be the recluse in me... an actual complete poem.

Behind the Times
I am two hours ahead of everyone that I care about.
And it's starting to wear on me.
I know that time is only an illusion,
I know that it is everything but linear,
But I am lost in the smoke and mirrors that it created.
I am separated by four dimensions instead of three.
Blinded by the reality of empty space between home and me
And it's starting to show.
But I know that time is only an illusion.
It is nothing if I want it to be nothing.
It can be everything but linear.
I can be lost in the smoke and mirrors that it created,
The reality of what I've created.
Blinded by the four dimensions instead of three,
Empty space between two hours ahead.
But always looking back to everyone that I care about.