Hurt people hurt people. People hurt others because they themselves are hurt. The people who they hurt, hurt others. It is an endless cycle… unless it is not. What can stop the cycle?
People like you and I point fingers at one another saying, “You hurt me!” The truth is, I did hurt you, whether I meant to or not. You hurt me, whether you meant to or not. I am hurt. You are hurt. I cannot see your hurt because of my own hurt. You can’t see mine because of yours. We are each stuck in our own pain, pointing fingers of blame. Again, the endless cycle. What can stop the cycle.
The only choice other than feeling the pain and looking for blame seems to be to just sweep it all under the rug. Just pretend as if nothing happened. But it did. The hurt is real. The pain is intense. To ignore it is to direct the rage inward. Inward where it will eat us alive. What else can we do? Am I supposed to just “forgive and forget”? I can’t forget. It hurts too bad. The two choices to a) live in the pain and feel the hurt or b) bury the pain and pretend it is not there both feed the cycle. But it is all most of us have ever seen… ever! There must be another way.
Enter Grace stage left…
No, I’m not getting religious. As much as I have heard grace talked about at church, rarely if ever have I seen it practiced. I’m not talking about some cosmic thing that you can’t quite put your brain around. I mean the kind of demonstrated grace we can experience in this life. It understands we are both in pain and that much of that pain is born from misunderstanding. The grace I am talking about allows me to listen to you without defense when you are accusing me. (Ever experienced that?) In this kind of grace I recognize that I am a pain giver as well as a pain receiver. (Ouch!) This grace creates a space where you and I can listen to one another for understanding, not to fix the problem and not even to agree! The kind of grace space I mean is one where you and I can feel both listened to and understood. Where we are not so concerned with who got the most points or who won.
The world is full of hurt people. Some of them were hurt by me. Some by you. I know some of the wounds I have inflicted, but not all of them. I want to live in a place of grace where I can confess my faults and feel understood. If there is to be any hope of having a space like that, someone has to start. Someone must break the cycle. In that spirit, I want to be one who helps create those kinds of spaces for others. It has to start somewhere. Why not here? Why not now? It is not an easier way to live, but it is a better way to live.
grace, hope, life, personal, spirituality
If only…
When I was a young man, I had all the answers. In fact, I still have most of the answers, but they changed. Now I am not so sure of these new answers. One of the reasons for this lack of surety is because of those very changes. Why should I think that I would stop and settle on “the truth” as I know it now? I’m pretty sure I’ll keep “adding to” and “taking from” as long as I am breathing in and out.
Being the father of four teenage daughters at the same time was a challenge. I envisioned myself as the stoic leader of my family. the one with the answers and the rules. Of course, I expected them to believe the truth as I knew it and to live by the same rules that I was trying to live by. I was mostly unaware of how little they were interested in following those rules. I thought it was a phase and they would eventually come around. Rules are created to prevent pain, which is a good thing until the rules become the point and we stop feeling pain because we don’t feel anything. When the kids were living at home with us, I felt the need to be the example for them to follow. After all, If I broke the rules, how could I possibly expect them to follow the rules?
Now that they are all out on their own, the scales begin to fall from my eyes. I realize now that I do break the rules and no one knew that better than my daughters. In 2004, I went to France to play music with LaClef. The group was mostly people my kids’ ages at the time (late teens early twenties). I kind of became “the dad” on the trip. I remember hearing their stories and on one occasion in particular, several of them were sharing their painful family stories. As I listened to them talk about their parents shouting and how it frightened them, I cried with them. I was angry that anyone could do that to such great kids. Later when I had some time of prayer and reflection, I thought about the pain they felt and related it to my own pain. I remembered how I too shouted where my girls could hear. I remembered one of them coming to me in tears asking if her mom and I were going to get a divorce. It hurts to write that. In that moment I realized that I was not only the recipient of pain, I was also the giver of pain.
It is humbling to realize that finger-pointing works both ways. I want grace for all the dumb things I do. I want to be let off the hook for my mistakes. I think the best place to start is by giving grace. Giving it to others and to myself. Letting others off the hook and me too.
Over the years, I have always thought it was silly when I heard people say, “If only I could go back and do it over with what I know now.” It’s goofy to think you could win the lottery or buy Microsoft (even though it makes for a pretty fun movie). As I step into a new understanding of graceful living, I find myself wishing for the first time every that I could go back and do some things over. I wish I had understood grace better and lived it better rather than so much rule giving and following.
grace, observations, reflection
Recent Comments