F: Forgive #Step6

If you open up social media these days, or, rather the days before these days (when the world was not flooded with the voices of doom predicting the end of the world as we know it - which is not an altogether unpleasant thought – or -sometimes inappropriate jokes about husbands having to help in the kitchen- I don’t know which is worse!) you would find a lot of people posting on forgiveness. How forgiving the person who has hurt you is enabling and helps you heal. Okay, I had a problem about this. In fact, I’ve always been pretty good at holding my grudges. It’s not so much about myself, to be honest. You hurt me, I will and can take it with a pinch of salt and carry on. A ‘sorry’ would be nice, but I can live without it. But you hurt anyone I love (and I mean anyone) I will teach you lessons about grudge that you never knew existed. This one time someone told me, “but elders are meant to forgive.” I looked at him like he had worms coming out of his mouth. “But then, sometimes, the younger person has to apologise,” was my retort. And I meant it.But then, I thought about it. It’s not always easy but it’s easier to forgive. And to do that, you have to forgive yourself first. No one ever lost anything by being gracious to another, and nothing gets a message across like being ‘nice’ to someone who has wronged you. Oh, you don’t have to fall into their arms and become best buddies but you can look through the differences and carry on, if the person still features in your life. Trust me, you will feel the better for it. Back to forgiving yourself. That’s first. Forgive yourself. Only then can you find it easier to forgive others. You know all those little and big things you did (or do) that you are not really proud about, the bitterness, the distrust, the anger that corroded your soul? Take them (yes, I have some too, like the time I was ratty with my dad or cruel to that guy who thought he was in love with me - I have so much guilt about that! - or all the times I felt I was wronged or discriminated by those meant to nurture me or another thousand little things that I endured or simply could have dealt with better) and imagine yourself put them all into a big cardboard carton. Oh, you can fill it with whatever you like. Take your time, think back, there may be odd knick-knacks brushed under the carpet that you have missed. No rush here. And then once you think you’re finally done, load it on a wheel barrow, put it in a sack (I like the sack) and drag it to the top of a cliff and throw it over. Hear the satisfying crash as it falls. Or set fire to it. Let it burn, let it all dissolve into smoke. Do you feel better now? And I leave you with a poem by Edward Rowland Sill, an American poet of the 19th century. 
The Fool’s PrayerThe royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the Monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"'T is not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'T is by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away."These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend."The ill-timed truth we might have kept—
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say—
Who knows how grandly it had rung!"Our faults no tenderness should ask.
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders — oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall."Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"