4.30.13

A little introspective this evening...

One thought or theme I've continued to revisit over the last couple of years is forgiveness; my forgiveness of others, others' forgiveness of me, forgiveness from God, self-forgiveness. The first has been and is the easiest. I've been blessed to have been surrounded by great people in all of my walks of life; it's not as if I've suffered greatly from anyone but even in instances where people may have wronged me, hurt me, whatever, I bear no grudges toward anyone, harbor no anger toward anyone. Being cognizant of my own many faults and failings, past and present, has helped make it easy for me to accept and forgive occasional faults and failings of others. As for others' forgiveness of me I am aware of- most- of the harm and wrong I may have caused others over the years. If possible I've tried to make amends for, or at the very least apologize to, those that I've hurt or harmed. Where that hasn't been possible I've tried (with varying degrees of success) to adopt a pay-it-forward mindset, trying to do better by people in my life now to, in hopefully some way, make up for times past when I didn't do as well by people and cannot make that up to them now. If nothing else I hope that, as time has passed, I, and any bad behavior on my part, are irrelevent to others today. And I received absolution roughly two years ago prior to undergoing surgery which, if you believe in it, should have set me kind of right with God (So I got that goin' for me, which is nice... to quote Carl Spackler!) I haven't been to confession since but I do get to mass at least a few times each month so, again, hopefully I'm at least ok on that score.

Self-forgiveness... well, that's been a bit more difficult. I had someone comment to me recently: I think you can flog yourself with the best of them. I don't know if I'd say that. I am aware of my many faults, failings, etc... in so many aspects of my life; things that I've done wrong and, just as much, things that I've failed to do right. I do realize that we all have our faults, our failings; I'm not unique. Where I have difficulty is in the moving forward from part; I have the mindset that moving on from- forgiving- myself, absent specifically correcting and/or making amends for past missteps, mistakes- sins- is tantamount to abrogating responsibility for them, to dismissing them, to letting myself off the hook without having made things right. And where I'm likely looking at a shorter window of opportunity to make things right it can be frustrating to not be able to develop that self-forgiveness, to create a better sense of personal peace. I commend those who are able to do so.

I'm the only one who can do that for me.

4.18.13

Not a whole lot to say about the Marathon bombing this past Monday; there is a host of informed, eloquent, and heartfelt commentary to be had. Thoughts and, as possible, assistance and support should go to the victims of this attack, and to their loved ones. And credit to and appreciation for the efforts of all who have and continue to help in the aftermath: first responders of all stripes, medical personnel at the scene and at the many local hospitals, police and all law enforcement and investigatory personnel who brought order to chaos, secured the crime scene, and are now sifting through evidence and seeking those responsible for the attack to bring them to face justice. Beyond that just a few thoughts... Besides being incredibly cowardly, individuals who commit such acts are also incredibly stupid; do they believe that attacks of this sort, where innocent people are killed and maimed, will engender any widespread support for whatever their dubious cause may be? Any sympathy for their perceived grievances, any legitimacy to their cause, vanishes with acts such as these. But again, while they may possess the technical and logistical know-how to carry out such acts they apparently lack the intellect to comprehend how their acts will be perceived by whatever audience they are hoping to sway... In a free and open society as ours fortunately is acts of this sort are impossible to thwart 100%, 100% of the time. Individuals bent on mayhem will, unfortunately, find a way to act upon those impulses if they truly desire to. It is one of the costs of freedom. Outside of drastically curtailing our freedoms the best we can do is keep our eyes and ears open to those around us, take seriously the issues those around us may face and try to help them or try to find them help, and/or report disturbing behavior to appropriate officials. Actually it's not a bad thing to try and help people period... Lastly, while I suppose it is inevitable it is nevertheless maddening that the ones remembered most from these incidents are the perpertrators, not their victims. Outside of family, friends, perhaps their local community or circle in time the names Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell, Lingzi Lu, as well as the 170+ others injured, or the scores of those who helped and are helping the victims as well as seeking those responsible will be all but forgotten while the names of the perp/s will be infamously memorialized. I realize it is the nature of such things, but it is a shame.

God bless the victims and their loved ones.