On Forgiveness

There’s a small child in our lives of late. We try to keep him once a week to help the single Mom and Grandmother who both work. For some reason he and I have a bond. He comes to me and grins and we just know we’re glad to be with one another.

I love him. If I try to call it anything else I do not articulate. He doesn’t speak yet. A part of me doesn’t want him to. There is a beauty in his silence and fear not … he communicates well.  He’s a happy child, always smiling and curious. He doesn’t like when you lay him on his back yet has come to accept when we do.

My wife sends me videos and photos at work. Every time I look at one I find that I feel transported somehow … affected. He’s exhausting. You’re concerned he’ll fall or get hurt on your watch. I spoil him because I can.

The thing is, I kept being moved by it all, tearful. So I texted my wife when she sent a photo as he was “operating” a small blower with our cousin explaining that my feelings confused me until suddenly … it was there.

This child, his beauty and innocence, the difficult yet loving family dynamic, his very presence in the universe breaks my heart. He begins his life and all the things that make us hard start to happen. All he knows is curiosity and want. He doesn’t understand when he doesn’t get it but he’s only sad for a few short moments then something else pops up and he’s forgotten.

If only we could forget. If only we could forgive. Then we could move on with the curiosity of a small child and our lives would be so much better for it.

Yet we will remember. Our resentments will, drip by drip, rob us of the beauty, power and grace we have been so freely given. Or will we ... can we ... each day, "let go and let God?"

If Only I Can Sing

 “Why do I write?” All my life I have needed to say something, many things I'm sure most folks would say. When I struggle to say these things it often sounds … somehow stilted.

Yet there are frequent times when my heart makes it to my brain and I “see” something. The words flow, my heart usually races and I am left with a thing that speaks from my inner self.

I have taken classes where we will read our stuff to a small group. My voice waivers and cracks. My heart will pulse in my ears until I am finished and sit rather stunned, lacking words to speak. That’s when I know God has “spoken” to me.

You see that’s the whole point. Some might say I am a simple, deeply flawed searcher. I began to write in young adulthood because I needed to. I stopped for a long time. Now I know I stopped writing because I stopped listening.

I stopped listening to God. Sometimes I stop listening now. Then the words will dry up and I will become angry. I have learned that I am angry with me but it wants to look like I am angry at the world around me.

Long ago I took a path that was wrought with violence and desolation. It laid me low until I asked for help. That help was given freely and I began a little at a time to listen again. Now that is where I begin.

Each day I seek from the core of my being to listen. I am not an educated man but what I am is a believer that came to it by trial and failure and yes … humiliation. I know the sound of rats scratching under the bed. I have seen through the picture window from outside on a cold winter night as a family broke bread, fire in the hearth, while I trod dejected … to nowhere.

I have seen war and known hunger. I have stared at my mortality and welcomed the end of it all. I know abuse and psychological torment, hate, prejudice, rage ... and disgust.

Yet I also know the unconditional love of other souls who are listeners. They saved me and inspire me to tell the story however I can. So I tell it with wavering voice and vivid memories. I sing a song of brokenness that I pray can help heal others … if only I can reach the notes He has given me.