Forgiveness

This post has nothing to do with kink. Unless Judaism and pontification happen to be your kinks. Just FYI.

It’s Yom Kippur today, the Jewish day of atonement. I just came back from morning services and my stomach is already growling.

I don’t know what my beliefs are in God. I certainly don’t believe that whatever higher power that exists is tallying all of my good and bad deeds and writing them down in a ledger. Surely such a higher power would have better things to do with its time.

Yet, Yom Kippur is an important holiday for me. It’s a time I use for self reflection, where I hold myself up to my own mirrors. Now, some biblical scholars will say that there is God in all of us, so I guess I am subjecting myself to God’s judgement in some way.

In services today, there was a portion of the text that really struck me. I read it just about every year, but this was the year it held meaning for me.

I hereby forgive all who have hurt me, all who have wronged me, whether deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed. May no one be punished on my account.

As I forgive and pardon those who have wronged me, may those whom I have harmed forgive or pardon me, whether I acted deliberately or inadvertently, whether by word or by deed.

As I read this text along with the congregation, I had to ask myself am I ready to forgive? How do I forgive? What does forgiveness look like?

This year has been a very rough year for me both physically and emotionally. Being injured for the better part of the summer and on crutches for two and a half months has exacerbated much. It’s given me all sorts of extra time to sit and contemplate the rest of the things swirling in and out of my universe.

There were people in my life who acted in ways that left me feeling emotionally bruised. Granted, during this same time, countless blessings have entered into my life. And mane of my ordeals this spring and summer. have helped me to find a new career path in a brand new city. But recently I realized that I was not at piece with what had happened.

I have no desire to contact this person. I can justify this by saying that the conversation would just rehash old wounds and only succeed in causing the both of us more pain. The truth is I’m not ready to let this person back in because as much as I’ve moved on and grown, part of me is still holding on to that emotional pain.

So how do I say that benediction with sincerity? I bear no ill will towards this person, nor do I think that this is a bad or ill intentioned person. However, thinking such things about a person is not the same as forgiving that person. What does it say about me that I’m still hanging on to that pain, as if getting rid of it would somehow negate the validity of my past emotions?

I wish I had an easy answer to these questions. I have little doubt that this day of contemplation and atonement will end in more questions then answers. On the plus side, it will also end with good friends and pizza, but that’s another conversation entirely.

What I think I’m learning today is that true forgiveness takes a lot of courage. For the sake of my own mirrors, I want to find the strength in myself to be able to make peace with that hurt and anger and truly let it go.
Maybe I just need time. Maybe I just need pizza. Regardless of what I may need, forgiveness is the center of my meditations today; forgiveness of myself as much as the forgiveness of others.