Things are feeling a bit more normal now around here. As usual, though, I've somehow managed to get horribly behind in my classes. I'm trying not to make excuses for myself and just press on, but it's tough when things like being verbally abused and threatened by a tow truck operator set off my PTSD. There was a week or so where I was pretty much useless and just spent the day in bed - that's a big part of what's put me behind.
But no sense dwelling in the past. It is what it is, and nothing's going to change it. We just need to pick ourselves up and move along.
I've been giving a lot more thought to forgiveness these past days, partially because of a talk I heard while I was driving to church on Sunday.
W. W. Phelps is well known among Mormons as s being a friend of Joseph Smith, and author of many of the hymns contained in our hymnal - a dozen, to be precise. I haven't checked, but he may be the author with the most works in our hymnal, among which are "Praise to the Man", "The Spirit of God", "Adam-ondi-ahman", "Now Let Us Rejoice", "If You Could Hie to Kolob", and the modified version of "Redeemer of Israel" still used today.
But there were some rough times in his life. He was excommunicated three - one of which was for testifying against Joseph Smith in a trial that ultimately led to his incarceration in Liberty Jail.
Shortly after Joseph's release, however, he begged forgiveness from the prophet, to which Joseph famously replied, "Come on, dear brother, since the war is past, for friends at first are friends again at last."
It is that first hymn I mention that always strikes me when I think of Phelps's life - though at times very much at odds with those he worked with, even so much so as to be willing to testify against his friends in court, he recognized the error of his ways and returned. Were it not for Joseph's willingness to forgive - in spite of the many hardships that he had had to face as a result of what he surely felt was a betrayal - we would very likely not have many of the lyrics Phelps wrote - in particular "Praise to the Man", as this was penned shortly after Joseph and Hyrum were killed.
What a little thing, to forgive.
And what great blessings have come to millions because of that choice.
Well, it's 12:20 on October 12th, so I suppose that means I'm 27 now. The other thing I've been giving a lot of thought about is the lessons I've learned over the past year. At some future point I'll probably write them out, but for now, it's time for me to go to bed and wake up older.
Peace,
Mark
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Thursday, October 6, 2016
For You
I hadn't expected to ever write this out, you know. But for the past week it's been bothering me every single day, even if I didn't realize it. And so here I am, just after midnight, writing you a letter to say this:
I forgive you.
It's taken nearly five years to reach a point where I can say that and mean it. I'm not sure if that's a testament to the damage you've done or to my own stubbornness. Probably a bit of both, I'd venture.
A wise man recently told me, "Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting. Forgiveness requires remembering, and in remembering, deciding it doesn't matter any more." I realized that I'd reached that point with you when he said that, and right there, I started crying. It was something unexpected, and I found myself at once embarrassed and slightly angry - both of them because of how long it has taken me to understand.
I ran into an old friend of ours at a wedding reception for her sister. Her hair's not as red as it used to be, and I didn't recognize her at first - thankfully she still recognized me. She's doing well. Their whole family is. She mentioned my writing, and that's what got me thinking - in spite of all of the reasons to write that I've found, I keep putting it off.
It made me realize how much time I've wasted these past years holding on to being angry, and that it's that anger that's kept me from writing, because, much as I know I shouldn't be, sometimes I still am.
There's the friendships you destroyed and bridges you burned. There's the damage done to my family. There's the hurt at being completely helpless on the other side of the continent as they suffered. But above all that there's the loss of trust, and my own refusal to trust again.
I think I've burnt more bridges in my own inability to trust than you ever could have, and that's part of what's made me so angry - not that I let it all get to me, but that I felt helpless to not let it get to me. I felt like an observer watching my own life fall apart, and now I'm living with the wreckage.
And so a lot of that anger was really directed at myself, much as I told myself it was at you, and blamed my problems, my social anxieties, my refusal to see old friends, my inability to make new ones, and my constant self-defeating behavior in virtually every aspect of my life on you.
I often told myself, "There's no point in dating someone if it just means dragging them into the train wreck that is my life," - it's hard to love someone else when you're having trouble finding a reason to love yourself and your own life, and on top of that having trouble finding a reason to trust them at all.
And so I blamed it on the fallout of everything you and your family did.
I don't blame you any more though. It's pointless, really. Assigning blame doesn't change anything. It's only been a convenient way for me to have a crutch to keep me crippled. Blame doesn't fix anything. It doesn't make things better, or even anything close to right. It just makes you bitter.
So here's me forgiving you. Maybe one day you'll really stop and see the awful magnitude of what you did. Somehow, though, I doubt it. And more than anything, that makes me feel sorry for you, because, "at some point, all of us must sit down to a banquet of consequences".
I certainly hope that I'm wrong, and being able to say that and mean it is something that truly surprises me. But I've been surprised before by stranger things, so maybe I am wrong.
If you were looking for some sort of pithy lessons and sage advice in all of this, or for answers to some deep question, well, I have none to give. I don't expect you to ever read this - in fact, I don't particularly care whether you do or not; I'm writing this for me, not you.
This is just me being honest and open about where I am. Maybe someone somewhere will find something in all of this of use to them - that's the only reason I'm sharing this: so others can learn from my mistakes, and forgive early and often.
I remember. but it doesn't matter any more, and so I'm letting go now. I'd rather be happy and go on living my life.
Goodbye and good luck,
Mark
I forgive you.
It's taken nearly five years to reach a point where I can say that and mean it. I'm not sure if that's a testament to the damage you've done or to my own stubbornness. Probably a bit of both, I'd venture.
A wise man recently told me, "Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting. Forgiveness requires remembering, and in remembering, deciding it doesn't matter any more." I realized that I'd reached that point with you when he said that, and right there, I started crying. It was something unexpected, and I found myself at once embarrassed and slightly angry - both of them because of how long it has taken me to understand.
I ran into an old friend of ours at a wedding reception for her sister. Her hair's not as red as it used to be, and I didn't recognize her at first - thankfully she still recognized me. She's doing well. Their whole family is. She mentioned my writing, and that's what got me thinking - in spite of all of the reasons to write that I've found, I keep putting it off.
It made me realize how much time I've wasted these past years holding on to being angry, and that it's that anger that's kept me from writing, because, much as I know I shouldn't be, sometimes I still am.
There's the friendships you destroyed and bridges you burned. There's the damage done to my family. There's the hurt at being completely helpless on the other side of the continent as they suffered. But above all that there's the loss of trust, and my own refusal to trust again.
I think I've burnt more bridges in my own inability to trust than you ever could have, and that's part of what's made me so angry - not that I let it all get to me, but that I felt helpless to not let it get to me. I felt like an observer watching my own life fall apart, and now I'm living with the wreckage.
And so a lot of that anger was really directed at myself, much as I told myself it was at you, and blamed my problems, my social anxieties, my refusal to see old friends, my inability to make new ones, and my constant self-defeating behavior in virtually every aspect of my life on you.
I often told myself, "There's no point in dating someone if it just means dragging them into the train wreck that is my life," - it's hard to love someone else when you're having trouble finding a reason to love yourself and your own life, and on top of that having trouble finding a reason to trust them at all.
And so I blamed it on the fallout of everything you and your family did.
I don't blame you any more though. It's pointless, really. Assigning blame doesn't change anything. It's only been a convenient way for me to have a crutch to keep me crippled. Blame doesn't fix anything. It doesn't make things better, or even anything close to right. It just makes you bitter.
So here's me forgiving you. Maybe one day you'll really stop and see the awful magnitude of what you did. Somehow, though, I doubt it. And more than anything, that makes me feel sorry for you, because, "at some point, all of us must sit down to a banquet of consequences".
I certainly hope that I'm wrong, and being able to say that and mean it is something that truly surprises me. But I've been surprised before by stranger things, so maybe I am wrong.
If you were looking for some sort of pithy lessons and sage advice in all of this, or for answers to some deep question, well, I have none to give. I don't expect you to ever read this - in fact, I don't particularly care whether you do or not; I'm writing this for me, not you.
This is just me being honest and open about where I am. Maybe someone somewhere will find something in all of this of use to them - that's the only reason I'm sharing this: so others can learn from my mistakes, and forgive early and often.
I remember. but it doesn't matter any more, and so I'm letting go now. I'd rather be happy and go on living my life.
Goodbye and good luck,
Mark
Saturday, June 4, 2016
"The path of salvation has always led...through Gethsemane"
Dear all,
I've been thinking a lot about faith, trials, and the nature of God of late. This past week marked five years since coming home from Santiago, and has been cause for a lot of reflection on my part. Between that and the sudden passing of some dear friends, both stateside and in Chile, I've had plenty to dwell on.
A lot has happened since I stepped off that plane in Manchester, NH, and if ever there were a contest for "World's Biggest Overgeneralization", that last sentence would have a good shot at winning. Life has not been particularly kind, but then again, it has no real obligation to do so, and complaining doesn't change the circumstances.
Over the past few days, I've read my way through two of the books in my collected works of C. S. Lewis, and they've been immensely helpful in reframing everything that's happened and putting it into proper perspective.
In mourning the death of his wife, Lewis wrote, "You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you." How very true this is!
God requires faith of us, and expects us to act in accordance with it. But why? Isn't God omniscient? Doesn't He already know what we believe, how we'll act, and what choices we'll make in life?
Yes.
The temptation to follow that line of thinking is strong, but it doesn't lead anywhere particularly useful without a proper framing of understanding.
Ultimately, God's knowledge of our nature isn't particularly relevant to our existence here - at least not in the eternal scheme of things. What matters far more is our own knowledge of ourselves and our nature, and the only way to learn that is through experience.
For me, this is a huge part of the reason why faith requires action - we have absolutely no way of knowing how strongly we believe in something until we choose to move beyond passive trust and into the realm of active faith. That's a huge part of what Lewis meant.
The trials we face are those moments of "matters of life and death" - in some cases very literally, and in others, more metaphorically. But in the moment, the sense of deep, drastic, even frantic searching are very much real, and can lead us to question whether or not God is there, if He listens, or any one of a number of things.
But faith is first and foremost based in trust. We cannot trust in what we do not know or understand - this is why Christ so often invited others to come unto Him and learn of Him. There is no other way to gain the kind of trust and faith that truly transcend mortality.
We must trust in God; that He is true to His nature, and will keep His promises. That He has all power, and that, in the end, "all things work together for good to them that love God".
Time after time, the Bible testifies of God as a refiner and purifier. How often do we talk about the beauty of this, and yet leave out the reality that the refiner's fire is in no way painless? Could there be growth without pain? I don't have an absolute answer to this, but I'm drawn to think of our own sense of physical pain, and how necessary it is - if there were no feedback to tell us that standing in the middle of a blazing fire, how long would it take us to realize that the decision we made is literally killing us?
Physical pain helps us to recognize danger, errors in judgement, and things that are causing us harm. Without that, we would never learn to not touch a hot stove, or walk on broken glass, or eat a prickly pear whole, or any one of a number of things. Pain is part of what helps us learn, every bit as much as pleasure and joy.
Pain and joy each have their place in life, and are necessary - indeed, they teach us that we truly do "need [God] every hour". If you are passing through trials and pain, no matter where your path along the road of life may be, remember that there is a God - your Father - who knows you personally and loves you deeply. Press on in faith. Trust in what you know, and strive to learn and know more of Christ. These present pains will be as a small moment, and looking back along the trails and trials, we will each understand the purpose and plan behind every turn, dip, and detour.
God has shown that He will preserve us even in the midst of our trials, time and again, and that out of our humble and imperfect lives can and will come the miracles He desires to work. Shall we not go on in so great a cause?
Con amor,
--Mark
A lot has happened since I stepped off that plane in Manchester, NH, and if ever there were a contest for "World's Biggest Overgeneralization", that last sentence would have a good shot at winning. Life has not been particularly kind, but then again, it has no real obligation to do so, and complaining doesn't change the circumstances.
Over the past few days, I've read my way through two of the books in my collected works of C. S. Lewis, and they've been immensely helpful in reframing everything that's happened and putting it into proper perspective.
In mourning the death of his wife, Lewis wrote, "You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you." How very true this is!
God requires faith of us, and expects us to act in accordance with it. But why? Isn't God omniscient? Doesn't He already know what we believe, how we'll act, and what choices we'll make in life?
Yes.
The temptation to follow that line of thinking is strong, but it doesn't lead anywhere particularly useful without a proper framing of understanding.
Ultimately, God's knowledge of our nature isn't particularly relevant to our existence here - at least not in the eternal scheme of things. What matters far more is our own knowledge of ourselves and our nature, and the only way to learn that is through experience.
For me, this is a huge part of the reason why faith requires action - we have absolutely no way of knowing how strongly we believe in something until we choose to move beyond passive trust and into the realm of active faith. That's a huge part of what Lewis meant.
The trials we face are those moments of "matters of life and death" - in some cases very literally, and in others, more metaphorically. But in the moment, the sense of deep, drastic, even frantic searching are very much real, and can lead us to question whether or not God is there, if He listens, or any one of a number of things.
But faith is first and foremost based in trust. We cannot trust in what we do not know or understand - this is why Christ so often invited others to come unto Him and learn of Him. There is no other way to gain the kind of trust and faith that truly transcend mortality.
We must trust in God; that He is true to His nature, and will keep His promises. That He has all power, and that, in the end, "all things work together for good to them that love God".
Time after time, the Bible testifies of God as a refiner and purifier. How often do we talk about the beauty of this, and yet leave out the reality that the refiner's fire is in no way painless? Could there be growth without pain? I don't have an absolute answer to this, but I'm drawn to think of our own sense of physical pain, and how necessary it is - if there were no feedback to tell us that standing in the middle of a blazing fire, how long would it take us to realize that the decision we made is literally killing us?
Physical pain helps us to recognize danger, errors in judgement, and things that are causing us harm. Without that, we would never learn to not touch a hot stove, or walk on broken glass, or eat a prickly pear whole, or any one of a number of things. Pain is part of what helps us learn, every bit as much as pleasure and joy.
Pain and joy each have their place in life, and are necessary - indeed, they teach us that we truly do "need [God] every hour". If you are passing through trials and pain, no matter where your path along the road of life may be, remember that there is a God - your Father - who knows you personally and loves you deeply. Press on in faith. Trust in what you know, and strive to learn and know more of Christ. These present pains will be as a small moment, and looking back along the trails and trials, we will each understand the purpose and plan behind every turn, dip, and detour.
God has shown that He will preserve us even in the midst of our trials, time and again, and that out of our humble and imperfect lives can and will come the miracles He desires to work. Shall we not go on in so great a cause?
Con amor,
--Mark
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