May 5: Book Club, Saint Angelo, Forgiveness Again

Tonight, my book club is meeting at my house.  We had to postpone our meeting last week to accommodate some people's schedules, and to insure people would actually come.  We read poetry for April, Garrison Keillor's new anthology called Good Poems American Places.  It is a really good collection.  However, poetry doesn't necessarily rank high on people's reading lists.  Several of the club members didn't even purchase the book.  That's fine.  I will still force them to listen to poems, talk about poems, and appreciate poems.  It will be a good night.

It's also going to be a crazy night.  My wife is working, so I have to chauffeur my daughter to her ballet class.  That means I'm going to be about a half hour late for the meeting at my house.  My sister is going to be doing the hostessing duties while I'm not there.  The only problem with this plan is that, when I'm not present at book club, the other members tend to select the books for the next six months.  That means I usually get stuck reading novels I wouldn't buy for my worst enemies.  However, there is nothing I can do about the arrangements.  Therefore, I can only pray that the food is enough of a distraction until I get home so I won't end up having to slog through the newest Richard North Patterson tome.

Speaking of worst enemies, I just found out today that a relative (let's call her Shithead, or SH, for short) is coming this summer for an extended stay.  I used the word enemy simply for a smooth segue.  The person I'm speaking about is not an enemy, but she has made my life, and my family's life, very difficult in the past.  I try to be the bigger person.  I try to look past SH's faults into love and forgiveness.  I really do.  This person doesn't make it easy.  SH also successfully drags other people into her little feud with me.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's going to be a pretty shitheady June.

I could take a few pointers from Angelo, today's patron saint.  A Jewish convert to Christianity, Angelo "experienced great success in making converts among the Jews, especially in the areas of Palermo and Leocata."  In 1225, Angelo was stabbed by a man he had criticized for his sinful life.  As Angelo bled to death, he prayed for his murderer, forgave him.

Stories like Angelo's tend to humble me.  I'm not, nor have I ever been, that forgiving.  I hold on to hurts way too long.  The reason I'm not consumed with anger 24-7 toward SH is that she lives a great distance away.  That makes things tolerable.  When we're in the same state of the union, I start to break out in hives, metaphorically.  The fact I found out about SH's visit on Saint Angelo's feast day is serendipity.  I think God's sending me a message.  It's not a message I'm accepting very well right now.  At the moment, I'm thinking a mission trip to Venezuela sounds pretty good.  God has another plan for me, though.  His plan involves humility, compassion, and forgiveness.  It sucks.

In the spirit of Angelo, however, Saint Marty will start praying for SH.  Sonofabitch.