Lent has never been an easy time of year for me. As a kid, I was taught that Lent meant sacrifice. I had to give something up for Jesus to be a good, Catholic boy. More often than not, I always fell back on the old standby: I gave up chocolate. For most of my childhood, I ranged from what my mother termed "husky" to just plain fat. Chocolate was one of my best friends. I was on a first-name basis with the whole family: Hershey, Nestle (Nessie to pals), Cadbury, and Elmer's (the black sheep of the sibs, cheap but passable in a pinch). Forty days without even a nibble of brown Nirvana was a difficult struggle for a pudgy child/adolescent. (I usually never made it through the entire Lenten season, which brings up the whole issue of Catholic guilt which I'm not prepared to deal with right now.)
As I got older, the whole "giving up" thing fell by the wayside for me. It's not that I don't believe in sacrifice, but I just couldn't come up with anything that really seemed worthy of Lent. I mean, how does abstaining from, say, masturbation as a teenager compare with the narrative of Christ's Passion? Being a horny fifteen-year-old doesn't really measure up to scourging and spears and nails and crosses. So, I just stopped the charade around the age of twenty, which scandalized most practicing Christians of my acquaintance who trade their Lenten sacrifices like baseball cards around the Easter season.
This year, however, I came up with an idea that really seemed equal to the solemnity of Lent. This year, every morning, I'm going to pray for people who have wounded me in some way. Usually, on my way to work in the morning (a 25-to-30-minute commute, depending on the weather), I say the rosary. (For my non-Catholic readers--if I have any readers at all besides family--a rosary is a form of prayer and meditation using a string of linked beads.) So, since last Ash Wednesday, I have been dedicating that meditation and prayer time to people on whom I usually heap piles of "fuck yous" and "assholes." And, let me tell you, it has not been a pleasant experience.
I thought I only had a few people I had not forgiven for past offenses. As I started to pray, however, suddenly the Ghosts of Trespasses Past started lining up, and the queue wound around the metaphorical block. I've always thought of myself as a pretty forgiving person, but, as I prayed for these individuals, I started feeling anger and pain and shame I thought I'd dealt with and buried long ago. It was like lancing boils. All the pus and poison came pouring out. By the end of the first day, I had a raging headache and nausea. Thursday, the same thing happened. It hasn't gotten easier with time, and each day, new ghosts continue to appear.
I have a confession to make at this point. My wife and I have had our share of marital problems since she was diagnosed with bipolar. Living with mental illness, and living with a person with mental illness, is not a bed of roses. More like a bed of glass. Broken glass, sometimes. People who have a mental illness frequently have addiction issues, as well. Alcohol, drugs, whatever. My wife's addiction is sex and the internet. This was pre-Tiger Woods, before sexual addiction became the addiction d'jour. I am not going to turn this into a list of crimes and misdemeanors. Suffice to say, this addiction led my wife and I to separate for over a year. We have reconciled, and Beth has been sexually sober for over three years. (That doesn't mean that we don't have sex. That means she doesn't have sex outside of our marriage bed or couch or living room floor or kitchen counter. You get the idea.) And we now have a new son.
So, when I started my Lenten prayer practice, I had to pray for the men with whom Beth has had sex. (I know a couple of them, but, for the most part, they are a nameless, faceless mob.) I knew praying for them would be difficult. I didn't know that doing it would give me such intense headaches and physical distress. (By the way, for those of you familiar with the Christ story, I now have an inkling of the agony Jesus suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane.)
Which leads me to the saint for today, Peter Damian, an 11th century Benedictine abbot and confidant of Pope Gregory VII. Peter Damian is also the patron of headache sufferers. The brief description of his life in the Lives of the Saints makes no mention of him suffering from migraines or chronic cranium pain, but I have to think he did. Why else would he be the go-to guy for headaches? Anyway, I'm sending a shout-out to Saint Peter Damian tonight, hoping he'll make my Lenten journey a little easier.
Forgiveness is not just a word for me anymore. It is a physical act that sometimes hurts like a bastard. I don't think I will listen to an apology the same way again. Those words--"I'm sorry"--require a purging on the part of the person accepting them. It's almost like taking the Presidential Oath of Office. It's a responsibility to forgive, and keep forgiving, until there are no ghosts left haunting the halls of your mind. Obviously, I'm not at that point yet. I don't know if I'll be there after 40 days, 40 weeks, or 40 years.
But I do know this: If you can't say "I forgive you," you'll never be able to say "I love you."
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