11 May 2013

Bercianos del real Camino

Grudge cleaning

This 25k walk was on an absolutely spectacular spring day on the camino. The sky was a gorgeous blue with clouds that shouted out for guesses of what image they were. I walked alone because when we arrived at the albergue yesterday, they had only one bed left. The good bishop and Joyce insisted that I take it. They ended up another 3.3km further. Poor souls after a 30+k day.

I walked along on this really gorgeous day on a gravely path, slight hills, and mostly level walking. Nothing big came to mind for most of the day. I was enjoying a great walk with God all morning. Just He and I chatting away like magpies. This went on for hours before I was invited to what I would call, 'Jesus school' initiated after hearing one of my new favorite songs: Matthew West, "Forgiven."

A Forethought: The camino has a unique ability of emptying one. At times I think about why it's such a powerful spiritual experience. I'm beginning to think that the camino doesn't put the spirit in one, it unburdens one to recognize the beautiful spirit tabernacled within our heart. It takes so much effort and desire to quiet all the noise around and clear my mind of so many distractions in order to get glimpses of that which is already inside.

Maybe 14k into what was a delicious spring walk, I felt the nudge to enter into a lesson in response to the song I mentioned above. If Jesus would have used a white board to write the day's lesson message, it would have been: Grudge Cleaning.

The topic of forgiveness in relationship with God has been strongly attentive to me lately. I think this might be so because so many talk to me about hurts and heartaches.
in their life because of forgiveness issues. That thinking, in itself, is one level. It wasn't what Jesus wanted me to learn about today. It was, instead, what to do after an offense, that is, in the later encounters and interactions with the offender. The places where grudges grow like mold and mildew.

I'd like to share that I really have worked to learn and practice forgiveness as part of a desire to grow spiritually. Now some of the ugly honest side of DW: I saw in this reflection on my efforts to forgive, but not on how to avoid the grudge toward the offender.

I thought I was moving forward by continuing to maintain a relationship with the offender. However, what I saw in class today was the stench of little grudges I held long after the event. I recognized ways I spoke to this person, how I withheld being open to them again, how I privately rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed what was said/done-just to reassure myself that that person was NOT to be trusted again. In some ways, I was righting them off as any possible future good friend. At best, I passed judgment on them as one "not to be trusted again."

Pretty ugly picture, heh. I sat there, in my mind's eye of the Jesus classroom, recalling past offenses that I believed I forgave, but still held some sort of grudge. Not a pretty picture, I admit.

Ok, what do you want me to do with that, Lord? I tried the "I'm only human excuse." I tried the "Give me a break, I'm trying my best. " I even tried the "Forgiven, but not forgotten excuse."

I kept asking Him, " So how do I clean up old grudges?"

Nothing came to me, only a long walking stretch of really bright,sunny sky. This bore down on me for a few km in silence with Him. That's when the coincidence came to me.

Put the grudge in the light. This is how I understood the lesson.

A grudge lives in shadows of our relationship with an offender. It lurks behind, shouting silently whenever we're with the offender, " REMEMBER WHEN HE/SHE SAID THAT MEAN THING TO YOU. WHEN HE/SHE HURT YOU. BE ON GUARD. PUT THE LOVE LIMITS ON THIS ONE."

I have known and talked to others with grudge management issues who won't even go that far. "I'm done with him/her. or I don't talk to him/her." Grudges gone wild.

Grudges, viewed in the light, helps me validate that there was an offense. It wasn't something imagined. A grudge, seen in the light, get's it out of my head. Now it's outside of me. I can see it as just excess, smelly baggage. Why would I want to carry that hurt along with me any longer? Why do I want to replay all that junk, " He/she said this. I thought 'this' and then he/she did 'this' that really made me mad." On and on it played in my head. It is all that worthless junk carried in my head for days and days and, in some cases, longer. Satan loves this thinking, I'm sure.

Putting it in the light, let's me see the event with the offender as an opportunity for rising above it all. To be the bigger person. To freely give him/her a second chance. To be, well, more like Jesus.

Walking in the powerful sunlight today put this matter in a new 'light' for me too. I started to recall events and offenses when I have caused hardship with others long ago. Some of those memories I was pretty ashamed of. Recalling them made me want to catch up with those of my past and say, "Hey, I'm a different man today. I don't talk that way anymore. I don't do those hurtful things anymore." What I really wanted, more than anything, is to ask, "Would you give me a second chance?"

So ugly to say. My grudge-bearing prevented second chances for others. So many of us are improved people stuck in a bad memory and trapped in another's grudge. How sad. The me I 'was' is no longer the me I 'am' today. All part of the dirty business of a grudge held.

A little longer in this sun-born realization and I was led to consider how grudge-free Jesus is with me. I can bring Him my dirty, stinking same sins over and over, year after year, broken promise after broken promise and He NEVER holds a grudge. And NEVER a "You're forgiven, yes, but....." It's always a new slate. Made clean.

Scripture says, "As far as the east is from the west, so are your sins."

It was a beautiful classroom lesson today basking in the light of Jesus' calling me to be more like Him. And I became aware today of how much more 'grudge cleaning' I need to do.

'Son light' cleans most anything or anyone. Hope the lesson I received today might 'lighten' your load.

Carinosamente,

Deacon Willie