2001-11-02

Forgiveness. Feh.

Perspective. Perspective. (deep breath) Perspective.

You can blame it on my upbringing, maybe, or simply on the way that I'm wired, but I am spectacularly good at holding a grudge. Hell, I'm still seething about a comment Ad Frank made three years ago about the size of my ass, despite the fact that since then he's also told me that I've "gotta lot of what he likes."

Forgiveness is not one of my strong points. I realize that, in the two years or so that I've re-embraced my Catholicism (thanks in large part to my friend Lino), a basic tenet of Christianity is the ability to forgive. It's just a concept that I have not been entirely able to embrace.

No, fuck it: it's a concept that completely baffles me, one that goes against every fiber of my profoundly flawed character.

And I try....God knows I try. But I can't forgive the person blocking the doors of the subway train every morning. I can't forgive the co-worker who, when I note that she had admitted to feeling "achey" the day before -- and so subsequently inquire about her well-being first thing the following morning -- snarls: "I was tired, Lees, all right?!" I feel a horrible, ticklish thrill later in the day when she twists her ankle trying to readjust her chair. I sit at my desk and snicker like Linda Blair in that scene from "The Exorcist" when Max Von Sydow dies.

Oh, I'm a terrible Christian. I don't want to forgive people; holding things in and sulking about them makes for better writing, does it not?

On the other hand, it'd be nice to be able to let petty bullshit roll off my back.

I can understand, and even encourage, forgiveness in the broadest, most abstract sense of the word. As C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity, "...if we really want (but all depends on really wanting) to learn how to forgive, perhaps we had better start with something easier than the Gestapo."

lisamcc at 1:25 p.m.

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