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Father, Forgive Them...

It's no secret that I'm struggling to forgive someone and something. It's not even that I have no warm thoughts or prayers, because I do. It's just that the thing I most fear and hate has come true: to feel alone and isolated from a person who matters. I never wanted that. And I think, "To be misunderstood and even unloved! What could be worse?"

But then I listened to the priest. He said to meditate on those words of Jesus. It's true that my pain in its depth is not understood; it's true that I am hurt that I cannot redress it, that I have no one to talk to besides God, and His strange servants who don't really understand it.

But it is also true that I do not understand the depth of the pain I caused. I tried, but it's not always easy to do. It's harder when hurtful things come back at you. I'm a proud man; I am jealous of my reputation. So there was a curious tension between the opinion and hurt feelings of someone I value, and the unfairness of that assessment.

Life has gone on without me, I suppose, and if I wasn't continually reminded of it, I probably would not struggle so. If I could freeze it all in a time before it all happened, I would. And yet, the days that pass feel like a refutation of all the good. And that just seems wrong.

I've never been good at being angry. Worse than that, every time I say, "I have no need of this false 'friend' anyway" I call myself a liar in the next breath. Because I do not want to hurt and be hurt; I want to cry, and say, "I'm sorry" and hear, "I'm sorry, too." Don't judge me; like in the movies.

I'm not struggling to forgive; I'm struggling to live with the fact that I may not be, that I am a non-person in this other person's life. Call me vain or crazy or sick, but I don't fathom this; I don't know how.

You know how people in the Catholic Church debate Hell, and it's kind of a test of orthodoxy? If you emphasize total exclusion from God too much without mentioning punishment, some think you are doctrinally soft. If you talk about fire without exclusion, and without Mercy above all, people think you are a nut-bar. Well, there is something true about the thought of Silence that is the worst thing I can contemplate. Save your hellfire; anywhere without God is bad enough, dare I say. My friend is/was certainly not God. But I can tell you that there is something hellish about life here, and I only hope grace heals it one day.

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