The Lighter Dark Side of Reconciliation

So this weekend, I spent all of my time exhausting myself, and most of that time was spent working at Univ-Con, the USA's largest paranormal conference. It was ridiculously fun, but ridiculously tiring, considering pretty much all of my free time from last Wednesday to Friday night was spent helping get this conference working, and I still haven't fully rested back up from how fatigued it made me.

Excluding all of that, we had an interesting pair of keynote speakers Friday night at Univ-Con, Lorraine Warren, wife and partner to the only Vatican-recognized lay demonologist (the late Ed Warren), and Father James LeBar, a former exorcist. I had heard Lorraine Warren speak at Univ-Con last year, and had read a few books about some of her and her husbands more publicized cases, and I was not disappointed in any of it. There is a real existence of demons in this world, and anyone who doubts should talk to one of these people.

That being said, demons are smart, and they know things they shouldn't be able to know (preternatural knowledge, as they call it, I believe). These spirits know the dark things you have done in your life, and may mock, ridicule, and harass you with their knowledge of your sins and the times you have failed God. However, as an interesting note, they don't seem to have any knowledge of sins that have been confessed.

I guess when you go to reconciliation, that old Bible verse really is true.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed his transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:12)

It's kind of nice to know that when we say "forgive and forget," that God takes it kind of literally, at least in terms of applying it to his angels (both fallen and otherwise).

Loooooong week

Want to know why I've been saying nothing here for a while? Well, Jay over at Adventures of a Christian Collegian put it excellently in his list of things he has learned at college.

Professors are knowingly and incontrovertibly in an evil alliance to assign all quizzes, tests, and major papers during the same exact week. This cannot be avoided no matter what professors you pick. Even the ones you thought were cool (because they were younger and perhaps only went by their first name, which was something usually along the lines of "Mark" or "Jenny") are in on this conspiracy.

I had three tests this week, a quiz, and two major assignments. Throw into that my job working at the commons, helping to plan a pro-life rally in the spring, staying up late trying to keep my potentially concussed roommate awake, and fitting a religious retreat into my schedule, it's been a hectic week. I've had about four nights out of the past seven that have only had about four to five hours of sleep.

In the past 24 hours, I got 15 hours of sleep. I went on a run with one of my friends too, and I feel awesome, even though I'm helping to run a table to promote a pro-life speaker tomorrow, and I'm not entirely sure what's all going on with that. But that's not all of why I feel awesome.

Friday night at the retreat, we had faith sharing. Now, this scares the ever-loving hell out of me (I like using "ever-loving" as a swear modifier, but it doesn't really make as much sense here). I love faith sharing though. It feels so good to be able to talk to people and feel like they understand you, and maybe to get some things off of your chest. My usual policy with faith sharing is that once I think of something I want to talk about, I always wait fifteen seconds after the last speaker, to give someone who maybe urgently wants to talk the chance to get up there and speak. Plus, it kind of makes it easier to avoid going up front too if I give myself that time period.

God however, had different plans than for me to sit quiet that night though. After a couple of people went up (including one of my close friends, that had a problem he hadn't told me about, but I'm glad he let it out), I was doing my counting thing, and I got up past twenty. Nobody was making any moves, and finally I just said "screw it" to my insecurities and I stood up. Once you stand up, you can't really sit back down without people noticing, so I was locked in.

A lot of people had been talking about prayer and what it's done for them, so I started there. I said how what prayer does is awesome, but what prayer is is even better. I talked about how great it is to be able to talk to God whenever you wanted to, and my favorite ways to pray. And then I said how there was one prayer I wasn't sure about. Whenever I say it, I wonder if I'm saying or using it right or whatever.

That prayer is the Our Father. There's a line in it that says "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." But as I told them, I have a huge grudge. There is someone that I haven't forgiven, and I don't know how to forgive him. I don't know where he is or what he's doing or whether he's even sorry or not, and I don't know how to get closure and let go of this whole situation. If I'm doing well, I don't usually think about it, but when I start getting tired or stressed out, if I have nothing else to distract me, it will be the only thing I think about. Just on and on through my mind, as many bad thoughts about all of this as I can think of. I told them how sometimes I just can't function right because of it. And I apologized to my friend Dan, because the "problem" I talked about in this post had to do with how I can't forgive this person. I've been praying about this, but I still haven't found a solution.

Afterwards, people were hugging me, and I kept bursting out into tears. My friends told me to just keep praying, and that God never gives us more than we can handle. One of my friends told me I was beautiful, because that was the first thing that popped into her head. I definitely felt a lot more beautiful than I had in a while.

For the first time in almost three years since this grudge started, I actually talked to someone about it. Sure, I didn't go deep into it, and when Dan wanted to ask me more about it, I had to tell him that I'm sworn to secrecy about the specifics (which is the truth, until I ask for that promise to be given back to me). But I did bring it up. I finally told people about it. In my daily journal that night, I think I wrote "I did it!" close to eighteen times in a row, I was just that happy.

It may not be much, but it's a start, and that's how healing works, a little bit at a time.

I'm sorry for my problems

Tonight I screwed up a bit. My friend Dan thinks it was because of alcohol, which is good, because he thinks it's an outside problem instead of just me. I was supposed to bring "The Truman Show" to his dorm and watch it there with him and some other people. I showed up finally about two hours late, and Dan just advised me that he would "let this go, but you should probably just go home now John." Dan had called my cell phone much earlier, when I was only a little late, and while I took a quick poll about what to do, one of my other friends took my phone and told Dan that he had stolen my phone.

Myself, I don't know whose fault it was. It definitely wasn't the alcohol. I was thinking about not going to Dan's dorm before I started drinking at all. I just didn't want to see him. It's a long story, and I can't decide if it's my fault, his fault, or someone else's fault entirely.

Like I said a few posts back, I have a problem. Usually it's nothing. This week has been crappy, and something Dan had said a week or two back had sort of set off flags in my mind. It wasn't until today though that what he had said really had an effect on me. I read something in a book every student had been given at our high school graduation. I just didn't want to deal with what was bubbling up inside me, so I fell asleep at my bed so I wouldn't have to deal with anything. That always seems like the best option to me. Do nothing, hide away from your problems. They'll go away in a little while if you get some rest.

I know I should apologize to him, but right now I'm just trying to figure out who to blame. He doesn't know what's wrong with me, so I can't really blame him for something he didn't realize he was doing. I think I should blame myself, but my mind is telling me that's not right either. Maybe I should be getting more help with this problem. Usually it's no trouble at all. I went through the entire summer without a single hitch, I just think the stress of a new semester of school and a lack of sleep is getting to me.

Right now, Dan is IMing me, implying how he feels hurt, and I just don't know what to say. He said he felt hurt, and I said I was sorry. I told him I didn't know how to explain, but that I did feel like an ass. Then he had to head to sleep.

If there's one thing that I definitely know is my fault, it's this: I'm sorry that I don't know how to deal with this better. For all of my smarts, I'm still in the dark. I'm sorry that I can't figure out how to deal with this.

Three darts is just too much!

Okay, so the title is a cheesy Ace Ventura line, but still. Three posts is a lot. I should be studying or writing or something productive with my schoolwork (not that blogging isn't productive). However, I really would like to write this.

The title for this entire blog is "Forgiveness." I really like the idea of a blog based around forgiveness, but I really feel the urge to write about other stuff. I mean, I'm a practicing Catholic at the number two party school in the nation. That's not exactly a common type of person. It makes for a lot of strange thoughts and situations.

I don't know. Maybe I'll just let these thoughts ferment a bit. I know there are other things I want to write about forgiveness, but I don't know what to do about this other stuff I want to write about as well. Should I sort of alter the theme and title of this blog? Should I have a separate blog as well to talk about other stuff? What do you, my readers, think?

One More

One last post here before college starts up and starts slowing this down.

Cleaning up my room and packing today, I found a little booklet of Lenten Reflections from 2007. I had never really read it. I did, however, save it, because right before I threw it away, I scanned through it, and realized that this booklet had been made by some of my friends, and other students on campus.

Well, finding it this morning, I flipped through until I found a reflection by one of my friends, a fellow freshman last year, and ironically enough, it was about forgiveness. So here it is.

Matthew 18: 21-35

"Forgiveness is never easy. It may feel sometimes that it is all we ever do. Sometimes we think that we just can't forgive again. But when reading this passage, a whole new light is shed on the concept of forgiveness. We must be like the king Jesus describes. While it may seem that someone has used up all of their chances, we need to forgive again. If we stop forgiving, not only do we risk our relationships on earth, but also our relationship with God. After all, Jesus forgave His persecutors for whipping Him, ridiculing Him, and nailing Him to a cross. If someone can do that and still wholly give of Himself for us, why is forgiveness so hard? Perhaps it is not as difficult as we believe."

An Ounce of Prevention

One of those older sayings people use is "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Yesterday made me think of this saying in terms of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a special kind of cure that helps with ailments medicine can't cure. Well, unless it's psychiatric medicine, maybe.

Forgiveness cures guilt. It cures sorrow and grief and pain. It cures shame and hate. It heals the rifts between warring friends, fighting families, and feuding countries. It cures sickness in the soul and patches up the tattered remains of consciences. I'm almost certain it lowers your blood pressure too.

If forgiveness is the cure, then what is the prevention? You could obviously say "not sinning," but that'd be like telling someone the best way to stay healthy is to not get sick. It really doesn't help much unless you teach them how to keep themselves safe from sickness.

Well, aren't you in luck, because I happen to have a good strategy for avoiding things that would require you to seek forgiveness. It's short but means a lot and might need some explaining and examples.

Live.

I'm not talking about breathing and pumping blood through your body. That is existing, that's surviving. Living is about being happy and having friends and feeling good about yourself and working towards your dreams.

Yesterday was a day that I lived.

I hung out with my friend Dave all day. We got Chik-fil-a at the mall and played DDR and Wii, and we saw a bunch of our friends, coworkers, and some ex-coworkers I hadn't seen in months.

We went out to dinner at Panera's with my family, and explored a Jewish Community Center and swung on their swingset while waiting to pick up my brother from practice. I am a CHAMPION swinger.

I was reverse roundhouse kicked in the face by my little sister. We were in the kitchen, and she was trying to punch me in the stomach while I tried to poke her. She tried to kick me in the stomach, but I made a lightning-fast save and caught her foot. However, she grabbed onto a counter and swung her other foot around behind her, connecting right along my left jaw. She didn't think she'd actually be able to hit me, and I was just so impressed by her pulling it off that I just couldn't be angry at her. Although it did give me a headache for a little while.

After I dropped my friend Dave off at his house, I went out to my friend Luke's house and bought a bass guitar, amp, cords, case, and stand off of him for $120 bucks. I don't really know if I'll be able to fit it into my dorm with my acoustic guitar though.

Then I helped my dad clear out the fish and water in the tank I had been watching for my friend, which he picked up after work.

It was a day filled with good, clean fun between friends and family. I never had the chance or urge to do anything bad because I was distracted by being happy. That's the way to live.

P.S. Does anyone know how to cut off your posts and add in a "Read more..." button in Blogger? I'm a bit new to Blogger, and I haven't figured it out yet.

World Forgiveness Day

Did you know that there is a World Forgiveness Day? I didn't either, until I typed "Try Forgiveness" into Google. The only bad thing is, I missed it, but oh well, there's always next year.

International Forgiveness Day is scheduled for the first Sunday of August, which was August 5th this year. In 2006 it had official celebrations in 7 countries on five different continents, including eleven locations across the United States. They choose to recognize Heroes of Forgiveness, people who have shown near superhuman courage in letting go of wrongs done to them. One such person is Michael Berg, whose son was decapitated on television by terrorist leaders in Afghanistan. I had seen the initial story in the news, but I hadn't seen the follow-up that I found through Forgiveness day.

Michael Berg was devastated when his son, Nicholas, was beheaded on videotape by terrorist leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. So when Zarqawi was killed by U.S. military forces in Iraq, people expected Michael to celebrate his death. His reaction surprised many when he told the world that he mourns the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as he would the death of any man. Berg stated, “He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that.” When interviewed recently on CNN, news anchor Soledad O’Brien expressed surprise at his reaction. His reply was, “Well, you shouldn't be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.”

That is truly amazing. How many times have we held grudges for things like money or people holding you up at a traffic light or anything else insignificant compared to what Michael went through? We could all learn from the example of people like this.

And here's a Youtube video about International Forgiveness Day!

The Dark Side of Reconciliation

The title of this post makes me think of Star Wars and Pink Floyd. Sorry, I just wanted to get that out of my system.

Quick intro for non-Catholics: The sacrament of Reconciliation is basically one of Catholicisms official ways to be forgiven, and is one of very few ways that Catholics believe they can be forgiven of mortal sins. Mortal sins are sins that are seriously wrong, you know that the sin is seriously wrong as you're doing it, but still you do it freely and willingly. I feel that Reconciliation is awesome, and is probably my favorite sacrament that I've received so far, even though it always scares the hell out of me.

The last time I received the sacrament of Reconciliation, I was on a religious retreat with a Catholic club on my campus. It had been about a year since the last time I had confessed my sins, and the past year had not been a good one for me, at least in terms of all of the bad things I had done. I was writing down a list of my biggest sins so that I wouldn't forget them when I came face to face with the priest, but I managed to have enough courage to confess all of them. The priest gave me a psalm to read for my penance, so I went outside and sat on a picnic table away from the rest of the retreatants.

While sitting there, I at first felt good. I had been forgiven of everything bad I had done! I was a new man! That is the part I love so much about reconciliation. As I sat there further in prayer, I thought about all that I had gotten off of my conscience, and my heart started sinking. What sort of man had God just forgiven? If I had met someone who I knew had done everything that I had done, I would probably hate him. I would probably want to hit him, and I might even do it. I started feeling depressed and hopeless for myself.

I sat in this way for a little while, wallowing in my own sins and sadness. I thought to myself "You're a bad person." That was the last straw. My soul had taken enough of a beating, and it was ready to help me bounce back. "No, you're a good person," I thought to myself. My mind jumped to something good I had done on that retreat, just being myself and helping other people open up and talk. I thought of all of the good things I had done since my last confession. I had given a friend comfort and hope that he wasn't the only one who felt the way he did. I had been chosen as a leader on a religious retreat in high school (even though the retreat was eventually cancelled), so obviously I made enough of an impact on people that they saw me as a good religious leader. I had comforted friends and been a good employee and I may have even saved people's lives.

The litany of sins I had been reciting to myself were now overshadowed by all of the good I had done in the world. I had gotten rid of those sins for a reason, and one of them was because they didn't reflect who I really was. The good things I do are who I really am.

The dark side of Reconciliation that I found that day was that focusing so much on the things we've done wrong can make us forget the things we have done right.

If all we choose to look for is the darkness in life, that's all we'll see.

In terms of this blog, I think my topics have been rather dark for maybe a bit too long. Forgiveness is a joyful thing. It's not something that should always have us feeling ashamed and feeling like bad people. So, I am vowing for the next week straight to only post positive things to this blog. I've had enough of the shadows for now, it's time to let the light shine in!

Oh, but the "How Am I Not Myself?" this upcoming week will probably still be dark. I don't know how I can make that light, unless anyone has any suggestions?

Half-truths and honesty

A few posts back, I mentioned about myself telling half-truths, and in the comments, I and a new friend discussed me holding back the truth. You can see it here: One of the Problems I Have

The last post I wrote, someone praised me for my honesty.

However, the last post I wrote was originally quite a bit longer than what is currently up there. I had looked at what I had written, and just as with my friend that I had been untruthful with, I said "They don't need to know that," and I deleted it. This time I didn't even have the excuse of wanting to protect someone from being hurt. I just wanted to save face and not look worse in other people's eyes. So now you'll get to hear the rest of the story, because a half-truth is also half-lie.

There is a reason why I specifically started with that way that I am not myself. I wrote how there was something I had regretted doing earlier this week, and that thing that I did was taking advantage of a friend's feelings for me. It was after we had watched I Heart Huckabees as well, which was yet another reason why I wanted to start with that first way I am not myself.

So, I'm sorry for not being honest with you all before. I pray that I will do better in the future.

One of the Problems I Have

In the past 24 hours, I have done something that I really regret. I won't get into the specifics, but someone should have, at least in my opinion, rather disliked me, to say the very least.

However, I lied and I told some half-truths, and this person is now totally okay with me. But I'm not okay with myself.

The problem I've realized that I have is that either through my own actions or my own nature, I am too easily forgivable for my own good. I punish myself (no cutting or anything like that though, don't worry), but the people I hurt are never out to get me. I never feel like they get their just desserts, or their revenge, or whatever they should have.

Maybe it's better that way. If these people did just decide to beat me up or something, I would just be able to feel okay afterwards, because "Oh, I got what was coming to me and now I can go on my happy way." This way, I feel guilty, and maybe I learn from my mistakes.

Maybe this way is better too for another reason. I started this blog because I thought there should be more forgiveness in the world, and here I'm being shown forgiveness. Why should I be so bitter to that? The only answer I can think to give to that is these people don't know what they're forgiving me of, because of the half-truths. Would they still forgive me if they knew what I knew? I don't know, but I guess I should hope so. Otherwise, I'm just being a hypocrite with this blog.

The Irony Does Not Escape Me

So at mass today, during the part about the forgiveness of sins (which I just found out is called "the penitential act"), the priest, instead of saying "let us call to mind the times that we have sinned," he added "let us call to mind the times that we have sinned, and let us especially remember to forgive those that have sinned against us." It was something like that. Believe me, with what I talked about in my post last night, the irony was not lost on me.

Oh, and last night, I actually ended up looking at blogs until 4:00, then taking a shower and going to bed. Nothing too scary happened, except when I went to turn off the last light down in the basement, I heard what sounded like shaky voices yelling from far away. As I walked back upstairs, the only thing I was thinking was "Oh please God, don't let me die, please let nothing happen."

I am definitely still alive, and I actually had a ridiculously long and awesome dream about a zombie apocalypse.

It's late and I'm scared

Right now it just recently turned 3:00 in the morning, and I am pretty freaked out right now. I started reading a scary book today, and I didn't exactly behave in the best manner tonight, not at all. So what with it being this bad hour and all of that, I'm a little scared. My house also makes funny noises at night, and half the time it sounds like people talking or walking around when I'm in the kitchen or the bathroom or some other place where I could be easily snuck up on.

I said an Our Father and some other prayers, but the Our Father says "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." I thought of someone that I still haven't fully forgiven for something, and it made me think that I had to forgive him before I could be forgiven. But the only reason I wanted to forgive him just then was because I was so scared for myself. I don't think that can count as a real pardon.

So now I'm going to take a shower and try to get to sleep in a decent amount of time. I have to wake up for mass tomorrow, and I've got some sins to be thinking of during that forgiveness of sins part and after I get communion, so I really shouldn't be falling asleep in mass.

A Dad's Road to Hidden Forgiveness

I have a dad that is in the broad scheme of things a pretty awesome dad, but a lot of the time he bugs me because he's a bit of a control freak and that has messed around with important parts of my life before. I don't entirely know what all of it is that I dislike, there's just a lot of memories I have with him that turned out really sad or angry or traumatizing or whatever for me. I don't really even think he meant for me to feel that way 99% of the time, and I think he doesn't realize it makes me feel that way about at least 80% of the time.

Don't get me wrong, I love my dad, but I feel like I can't be myself around him because he'll look down on it or something.

Today, he woke me up from a nap I've gotten into the habit of taking after Sunday lunch to have me help him transport a patio set from a warehouse to our house.

Long story short, after a few trips, and a bout of disassembling the table frame because it wouldn't fit in the back of the U-Haul truck we rented, we were done bringing everything back home. Dad was about to take the U-Haul truck back, and I threw him the keys to the truck that he had left on the porch. As I turned around to head back inside, he said, "Thanks for your help John."

Just that. "Thanks for your help John."

Really, that's not such a big thank you. It's not like I saved his life or anything. It was different for me though, because it told me that he didn't think me helping was something a son does just because a dad asks. It said "We were equals on this, partners, and I'm glad you decided to help me when I asked." It was like I wasn't being treated like a little kid; I was a man, and I would be thanked like one.

Just like all those times I had problems with my dad and he didn't realize what he had done, I doubt he knows what he did this time. It may not have been much, especially not to him, but today he's helped me become just a little bit closer to dropping my hidden grudge and forgiving him.