Lenten Day Thirty-Seven: Maya Angelou

March 27, 2024

“It is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.  Forgive everybody.”  Maya Angelou

On this Wednesday of Holy Week, forgiveness in on my heart.  The action is as old as creation when God gave Adam and Eve a second chance.  Forgiveness is a directive in the Lord’s Prayer; in response to the disciple Peter’s query about how many times a person must forgive (according to Law), Jesus replied “Seven times seventy” (according to Love).  Yet how we struggle with forgiveness.

When I think of the healing power of forgiveness, I remember an occasion that I witnessed.  One of my son’s best friends, Wade, was a young college student who, one afternoon, was play-wrestling with his roommate, something the two young men had done many times before.  Only this time, Wade dropped dead.  His roommate, grieved, stunned, guilt-ridden, and afraid, could have been charged with manslaughter, could have had his life destroyed.  Instead, Wade’s mother refused to press charges, trusting that the death was accidental, later confirmed by the autopsy that revealed a weak aorta that unexpectedly had collapsed.

On the day of her only son’s funeral, Wade’s mother (a widow) invited the roommate to be one of the pall bearers. Tears coursed down his face as he lifted the coffin of his friend.  After the funeral was over, this young man fell weeping into the arms of Wade’s mother who held him close, stroked his head, and consoled him.  When the mother could have been weeping in another’s arms, she chose instead to embrace this young man so full of grief and self-guilt.

We were sold a false narrative when Erich Segal told us, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”  What planet did he live on?  Love means being humble and vulnerable enough to say we are sorry, to be ready to make amends and heal any brokenness.  Love also means being willing to say, “I forgive you.”  Forgiveness is a two-way street.  Yes, it is the greatest gift we can give ourselves, but it is more than that.  It is also the greatest gift we can give another.

I don’t know why it is so hard for us to forgive.  I expect it has something to do with protecting our “precious” egos and our false sense of worth or power or control or self-righteousness.  Maybe we mistakenly equate forgiving with condoning, two completely different actions.  Instead, forgiveness is a releasing, a letting go, a setting free, of a dis-ease that only diminishes us and others.

This day, I begin again to open my heart to forgive, to forgive others as well as myself.  I desire to follow the example of a grieving mother and open my arms.  I pray to follow the example of a dying man on a cross and extend grace to all, even if it takes seven times seventy times.

Blessings ~ Rosemary