Resentment and Forgiveness

 

 

 

When I first moved down to San Marcos to go to college I lived on the campus of Southwest Texas State University. I took a job with the University Police Department as a way to supplement my income. Among my duties were writing parking citations and operating one of the booths that approached the campus. Much of the university was on a hill, and the duties of the police guard at the booth was directing traffic. 

One of the things I was responsible for as a booth officer was to tell students that they were not allowed to drop off passengers up on the hill. They had to disembark at the booth and walk. Mostly it appears that this was to keep the hill clear for the various commuter buses that came from out of town. Also, the only parking spaces that were past the booth were "restricted" meaning only faculty could use them.

I took my job seriously, and sometimes even a little too seriously. One person in particular that I had a run in with constantly was a woman who would try to speed past the booth to avoid having to abide by the university rules. My interactions with this woman led her to apparently file a complaint that I was "harassing" her (when in reality, all I was doing was enforcing the rules). Nothing came of it during my tenure but it did play a part in a later episode in my life.

After I had left the university in 1989, I took a job stocking groceries at a local grocery store overnight. At one point, the university received some complaints that someone was making obscene phone calls to one of the girls dormitories. Initially the phone company told the University Police that the calls were coming from the grocery store where I worked.

The woman who was in charge of the University Police at the time called me up for a talk. At the time I knew nothing about the harassing phone calls; I assumed I was being called in for an interview for an open full-time position on the staff. Only, when I got there this woman made every effort she could to get me to "admit" that I was the guilty phone harasser. Despite my insistent I was not guilty we parted ways with her still thinking I was the guilty party. Later the phone company admitted they had made a mistake. All of us on the grocery stocking crew received a letter of apology from the phone company (although I was the only one who had been accused by the University representative).

I never received any kind of apology from the woman at the Police department however. For something like 20 years I refused to let it go. I never saw the woman again or confronted her about it, but I held on to that resentment, often playing over the scene in my mind, sometimes with less than conciliatory responses to her questioning.

In 2009 I entered the recovery program I have mentioned several times in this blog. Among the steps towards a more reasonable attitude towards life was one in which I listed a list of grievances that I had garnered over the years, and she was the first one I wrote down. Letting go of these resentments, by praying for a right attitude and realizing what my part in the resentment had been was part of the process. I realized I had created that situation primarily because of my attitude towards the people I had interacted with during that job as a student police officer. If I had been more of a model citizen during those two years I doubt that the university police representative would have even paused when she saw my name among the list of grocery employees.

Forgiveness is a quality that took some years to cultivate. Sometimes it is easy. I don't even recall any of the times I lent people money who promised to pay it back but never did. I know there were plenty of times, I just never let it bother me. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I never lent anything I couldn't afford to do without in the first place, but it still has an essence of forgiveness that I could just let it go.

On the other hand, I also took things a bit too personally, especially when people didn't measure up to my standards of how people should be. Lending money was one thing, but stiffing me on a bet was an entirely different matter. I would never have said "We didn't have a bet" to get out of paying a bet, but it did happen to me on several occasions. These, too, caused some serious dampers in relationships, and these too were things that I needed to let go of during the recovery process.  

 "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" is familiar to anyone who has a familiarity with what is called "The Lord's Prayer". When it comes to spirituality, forgiveness is a two-way street. We can ask God to forgive us when we make mistakes, but God expects us to do likewise with those with whom we interact on a daily basis. 

Likewise, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" comes up commonly. And that sentiment is not restricted to just the Christian tradition. A Buddhist axiom: "Whatever is disagreeable to yourself, do not do to others." Islamic ideal: "None of you will believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself." No matter which religion or spiritual tradition you follow, there is, somewhere in their spiritual texts, something along those lines.

But when "the Golden Rule" is thrown out the window and someone does something to us that is unacceptable to us, it behooves us to take a step back and look at it from a different perspective. Resentments can cause not only undue hardships in our relationships, but they can also cause severe emotional and even physical damage to ourselves. I often say that the worst"hangover" I ever got was not as a result of having too much to drink the night before. It was because I dwelt too long ruminating over a situation that did not proceed the way I would have wanted it to.

When I finally forgave the university police woman in my own mind, my life became much better, both spiritually and physically. Not only did I get rid of that nagging emotional hangover, I also  began to feel better physically because I wasn't getting run down and tired from reliving the bad moment. I feel much better when I forgive and forget than I do when I retain and rehash them.

May your spiritual journey be fruitful.

Quiggy  

Lost

 

 

 

 

Have you ever gotten lost? 

It can be frustrating as an adult, to not know where the hell you are, totally unfamiliar with your surroundings and not sure how to get back to where things are "normal". But, I think, as an adult, it is much easier to stop and take time to evaluate the situation, and, hopefully, figure out the solution.

But as a kid it can be a source of panic to be lost.

When I was about 7 or 8, our Cub Scout troop went to Six Flags over Texas. We had some supervision, of course, but as I recall, we had partners who looked out for each other. Me and my partner at the time had paused at the entrance of the dolphin show. (Note: All this is vague fleeting memories, so some details may not be quite accurate. I think it was a dolphin show, but it could have been something else...)

Anyway, as we stood there my partner wandered away and I was left there by myself. Me, this young kid in a big environment with no one near me that I recognized. I began to cry. Fortunately this was the late 60's, and people were more receptive to helping out strangers, especially crying little boys. A couple of kind adults looked around and found the rest of my troop and we were reconnected without much trouble. But it still had a profound effect on me.

As a result, for several years I was reluctant to stray far from my family or the adults in charge. Gradually I overcame this fear, but it took a long time to be completely comfortable with looking out beyond the familiar surroundings. Today I am much more comfortable with investigating the unknown. The GPS on my phone has proven helpful on occasion when I got too far off the beaten track, but I have always had an innate sense of direction.  Once, before I did have GPS, I was in west Austin, traveling back to San Marcos. I knew, generally, that San Marcos was south and east of me, so I just kept going east until I ran into a block and had to turn south, then if another block came up I headed east again. Eventually I ended up in familiar territory.

It is the same way with a spiritual journey. It might be easy to get lost, especially when I am trying to take things into my own hands and trying to manipulate the outcome to my own desired result. And, as is often the case, I end up even more lost than when I first started. The key to staying fit on a spiritual trek is to stop and let the inspiration from a higher spiritual being (for me, God) take the reins. If I quiet my own inner turmoil of not being able to resolve the issue on my own, and let God take control, the pathway becomes clear. "Let go. Let God." is an axiom I learned in my recovery program that helps keep me from delving into a panic when it looks like all is hopeless.

It may take hours of frustration at trying to solve the dilemma myself before I actually break down and ask for help from God, however.

In one particular instance I remember to this day: About 15 years ago I went to a convention in Irving (a suburb of Dallas - Ft. Worth). I checked into the hotel and got settled in my room, then went to the front desk to ask where I might find a store where I could buy some bottled water. The desk clerk directed me to a Walmart, which consisted of making two simple right hand turns and about a 2 mile drive. On exiting Walmart, I took the road back to the highway, but that section was blocked off due to construction.

As it turned out, the entire Dallas - Ft. Worth Metroplex highway system seemed to be under construction. I had to detour several times, due to ongoing construction, and basically went through just about every suburb in the area trying to get back to the hotel. In the end I had been driving around for about an hour and a half, getting more and more frustrated that I could not find the hotel. Finally, after I had become exhausted from trying to solve the dilemma on my own I just said a simple prayer, one that I should have said a lot earlier: "God, I can't find this hotel. Please help me."

As soon as I said that prayer, lo and behold, a few hundred yards up the road was my hotel. I am convinced to this day that if I had not said that prayer I probably would have driven right past the hotel, thinking that it was not the ne I was looking for. It's quite possible that I was close to it once or twice during the hour and a half that I spent trying to solve my own problem.

Getting lost does not have to end in defeat. Sometimes God can use that situation to help me find a closer relationship and dependence on him, rather than relying on my bullheaded independent streak. 

May your spiritual journey be fulfilling.

Quiggy 

Meditation

 

 

 

 

One of the hardest things to master, at least for me, is the idea of meditation. I must have started reading at least half a dozen books on meditation over the years, but never fully finished them, nor have I ever really developed a consistency in meditation practices. Truth be told, my mind tends to be easily distracted, and it comes harder for me because of a lack of ability to focus.

This is the same whether I have tried to do it in the Christian tradition (praying and listening to God), or in a Buddhist ideal (just trying to banish all outside distractions and focus on the inner self), or any one of another half dozen practices. 

My main problem, as I tend to illustrate when telling people of my struggle with the concept, is that I will get started and then... "Oh, look! A squirrel!"  Although this illustration is pretty simplistic (it's almost NEVER really a squirrel that distracts me...), it serves to indicate my dilemma of how easily I can get distracted.

Long before I ever even heard of ADHD, I must've been one that could have been easily diagnosed with it. As a child I would often daydream during class, and I've always had a tendency to be impulsive. I recall more than once being sent to the principal's office because I was staring out the window instead of paying attention to the teacher. (Why did they have those room long picture windows in the classroom in the first place, if it wasn't for staring out of...?)

So it comes down to the idea that meditation is primarily a process of blanking my mind from any potential distractions. One ideal way to avoid distractions at least as far as I am concerned, is to begin before ever getting out of bed. When i wake up in the morning it is still pitch black dark. No one else in the house is awake, I am alone with my own thoughts. I can lay there (or sit there) in my bed and the only even remotely possible distraction would be if it's raining. But even that can have a positive effect on a meditation mood.

Meditation and prayer go hand in hand from the point of some religions. You realize there is a difference in the two? "Prayer" is when you are talking to God (or whatever higher spiritual being you choose). "Meditation", on the other hand, is listening for that higher spiritual being's response. Communication with God is a two-way street. It does no good if you ask a question to someone and then leave the conversation before you have received an answer.

There are many things in life that I am unable to discern the correct way to approach, and it becomes pertinent that if I am asking for help, I should wait for the answer before I act. This works not only on the spiritual level but also the physical level. In the same way that I can Google how to do something and have to follow whatever instructions I am given, asking for spiritual help requires that I follow through with the answer I receive from the spiritual realm. 

I am still struggling with the meditation aspect of the spiritual connection, but things do look better whenever I listen and follow through with the insights I am given.

May your spiritual journey be fruitful.

Quiggy 

 

Cultivating Patience

 

 

One of the faults I have, in both the physical and the spiritual realm, is a severe deficiency of "patience". It is for this reason that some things do not come easy for me. Lack of patience leads me to, variously, frustration, anger and even defeatism. 

One year, back in the early '80's, I was living away from home with an extended family, renting a room from my college friend's mother. There were about 10 of us at Christmas time, and instead of everybody buying 10 presents each, we just drew names and each person only had to buy a gift for another person. My college friend's brother in law got my name and he bought me the above conundrum, which I think was packaged as "Rubik's Revenge". The first thing, after I finished opening my gift, was that he took it from me and jumbled it up. Now I had my goal to fix it back to it's original state. Can't say I succeeded, but it definitely was a patience inducer if you kept at it for any length of time. 

My own personal ideas of "the way things ought to be" include a little side expectation of seeing immediate results. So, the lack of patience while waiting for things to start turning around and going my way leads to some incredibly selfish acts. 

Now, patience can sometimes come pretty easy. Most people find traffic jams to be annoying and frustrating. I observe other drivers in traffic jams always trying to jockey for a "better" position, as if somehow changing lanes every two minutes will accelerate their progress.  Me, on the other hand, I just accept that eventually I will be able to navigate this obstacle and just let time take it's course. Sometimes I even find it an excellent opportunity to meditate.

On the other hand, I can sometimes extremely impatient. The one instance that comes to mind most easily is: Whenever I have to call a help center for something with some corporation. You know the drill. You (or least I) always seem to get connected with someone in India for whom speaking English is a third or fourth language. It can be frustrating trying to explain things to someone who is not on the same wavelength. 

So, how does one develop patience? Raised in a Christian church I often heard the phrase "pray to God for patience". But that was always accompanied by a corollary: When you pray to God for patience, He usually gives you things to be patient about. My response to that has always been that I wish whoever was praying for me to have patience would cut it out. I mean. I certainly wasn't praying for patience.

The process of learning patience has been a long hard slog. 16 years ago I made a transition in my life where I started to slow down a bit, and learn to accept my situation. It hasn't always been roses and chocolate, but neither has it been a lot of skunk cabbage and Brussels sprouts... (I hate Brussels sprouts...)

I find that if I am rowing the boat against the current it is a struggle that drains me. Sometimes I stop and realize that the direction that the current is flowing is trying to lead me to a better life than the one I think is on the other side of the current against which  I am struggling. "Let Go. Let God." is one of the many mottoes in the recovery program which I follow. "Take time to stop and smell the roses" is another idiom that helps to instill some patience.

Whenever I am frustrated that I seem to not be progressing as fast as I think I ought to be progressing, usually it is a lack of patience that is the culprit in the ill feeling. Slowing down and letting things progress at their own pace instead of trying to manipulate things to progress at a pace I want is a key to that elusive patience.

For instance, I am not always in a rush to get from point A to point B anymore. An example: several years ago I made a trip to Lawrence, KS to visit some people I had only previously known from online contact through my recovery program. On the return trip back to Texas, I input my destination in Google maps, specifying to avoid highways and tolls. Then I just let GPS run its course.

During that trip, I ended up on some back country dirt roads. And by that I don't mean poorly paved county roads, I mean literally "dirt" roads. The GPS navigated me through about 15 miles of these dirt roads before I finally ended back on pavement. At no time did I ever become impatient with the pace I had to drive on those back roads, nor did I try to make up time after regaining the pavement. I can't say how much longer it took to travel that way rather than on Interstates, but whatever time I gave up was more than repaid by a serene drive through areas of the state I might not otherwise have seen. 

I do that quite often these days. I am not in any hurry to get anywhere, so I will program my GPS to do the same thing on many road trips. The only time I ever experienced any frustration on that was a fairly insignificant thing:  The GPS voice is decidedly from somewhere in the northeast. On a drive in Texas, the GPS voice told me to turn on How-ston Street, (spelled "Houston" Street). Any Texan can tell you that we pronounce it Hew-ston. It's named after a Texas independence hero and one of our first governors, Sam Houston.

But that is such an insignificant detail to dwell on that I dismissed it almost immediately, and only bring it up now and then to have a laugh or two over the faux pas. 

Patience is a grand ideal, and for me, sometimes patience goes hand in hand with acceptance. If I can accept things as if that's the way things are meant to be, it gradually becomes easier to have patience with the things that might otherwise cause distress.

 

May your spiritual journey be fruitful.

Quiggy 

   

 

A Conversation

 

 

 

A conversation with an angel:

 

I was standing in the checkout lane at the grocery store, waiting to buy a few items I had come in to get.  

"Can I be Frank with you?"

I looked behind me. An older gentleman with white hair and a beard looked at me expectantly. 

"Sure, you can be whoever you want. What's up, Frank?" I said.

"No, I don't mean 'Frank' as a name," he said "I mean can I talk to you, straightforward. You know, like one on one, man to man, and truthfully.... frank."

"Oh, OK. So what's on your mind?"

"I notice you seem to be putting up an excellent front with your current situation. Outwardly you seem to be bravely facing the hardships, but I also notice that deep down you seem to be actually struggling with it.  I think you ought to be more open and let more people into your life."

How did this guy know me so well? I took a closer look at him and noticed a faint glow about him. Who was this guy?

"The reality of it is," he said, "people really care about you. When they ask how you are, it is rather dismissive to just say "I'm doing O.K.", when in all honesty you don't feel well. You need to open up more."

"Who are you?" I asked. "How do you know about what thoughts are going through my head?"

"Oh! Let me introduce myself," he said. "My name is Peter. But you can just call me 'Pete' if you want."

"O.k. Pete. Give me the lowdown. How do you know about me?"

"Well," said Pete, "I work with this guy who has an interest in your well-being. He feels like you may be taking it a little too hard on your own. You know, there are people in your life that actually care. You have to learn to let them in. It's not just good for them to feel better when they help you, it's also a way for you to help yourself."

"Pete," I said, "I have been a loner all my life. I have been self-sufficient and always handled my own problems..."

"And, yet, sometimes you can't handle the problems..." replied Pete. "You tend to get disheartened and fatalistic when you can't work things out, and just say to yourself 'Screw it', when just right next to you might be someone sympathetic and have a solution. You should come to terms with the fact that you were never meant to travel this world alone. Everyone needs the help of others."

"But, what if I am burdening people with my ills? No one needs the heartache of listening to someone unload their story on them..."

 "You underestimate people. Sure, the stranger down the street might not be receptive. But I'm talking about your friends and your relatives. These people genuinely want to help and want to know how you are facing up. Those are the people you should not dismiss with that non-committal 'doing O.K.' when deep down you are either hurting or feeling depressed. Those are the people who can help you right the ship when it starts to keel over, so to speak."

I pondered this for a moment. It was true. I tended to not let people into my private life. That self-sufficiency attitude was entirely a major pressure point in my attitude. IAs I thought about what Pete was saying, something he had said earlier caught my memory.

"Pete," I asked, "just who is 'this guy' you mentioned that cares so much about me? And, for that matter, who ARE you? I mean, really?" 

"Who am I?" said Pete. "I guess you might call me someone who has a special interest in your well-being. Everybody has someone somewhere who is looking out for them. You know, like Clarence did for George Bailey."

"George Bailey??? You mean like the guy in It's A Wonderful Life? So that means you're my Clarence? My guardian angel?. But then that means that other guy must be..."

"Yeah, you got it. God. God cares about you. And God sends his representatives in all forms. Including as your friends and relatives. So use them. And don't forget to thank the guy who sent them."

*******************

So. Did this conversation actually happen? I'm not saying. But the message is clear. God cares.

May your spiritual journey be fruitful.

Quiggy

 

 

Attitude is Everything

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes Inspiration can come from the less obvious places. Electric Light Orchestra had been a favorite band of mine for years, more for their melodies and musicianship than for any specific lyrics.  I remember in 1980, the first movie I ever went to by myself was Xanadu. I wasn't particularly attracted to the story line of the film. In fact, I had no idea even what to expect from it. I mainly went just because I liked the songs I had been hearing on the radio.

The follow up to the soundtrack to that movie was the studio album Time, a concept album. The song "Hold on Tight" was the first single to be released from the album. At first, of course, I just liked the song because of the previously mentioned melody and musicianship. But eventually I started listening to the lyrics. And more and more, as time passes, the song continues to inspire me.

"When you see your ship go sailing.

When you feel your heart is breaking,

Hold on tight to your dream."

 

"When you see the shadows falling,

When you hear that cold wind calling. 

Hold on tight to your dream." 

 

What this song means to me is that if you look hard enough into the muck you can find a shining diamond buried beneath it. It's just a matter of attitude. There is a classic illustration I remember hearing once:

 

A group of scientists were conducting an experiment. They took two boys. One boy they put in a room filled with toys. The other boy they put in a room filled with horse manure. 

 

They returned about an hour later. In the room with the toys they found the boy just sitting there crying his eyes out. When they asked him why he was crying he said "Just look at all these toys. I just KNOW if I play with one it will break, and I'll get in trouble!"

 

In the other room they found the second boy with a shovel, happily digging in it and laughing his head off. When they asked why he was so happy he said "Just look at all this horse manure! I just KNOW there's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

The ultimate gist of this illustration is you are just as happy as you choose to be. There is a positive side to everything if you are willing to look for it. Going back to an earlier blog entry on this site: It would have been easy to approach the eminent layoff from my job as "Woe is me! Why do bad things always happen to me?" But if you read that entry you know I found the "shining diamond in the rough" of the situation. 

Sometimes it may be tough, as the lyrics above the above song point out. But the dreams that one has are never lost. The end of all hope is only one way to face it. The other way is to overlook the bad situation and find a way to continue on the journey.

Now, I know if you are struggling through tough times and things look bleak it can be easy to fall into a pessimistic funk. For years I was an avowed pessimist. I even, somewhat jokingly, adapted a classic line from the movie Love Story. The line in the movie said "Love means never having to say you're sorry."  My adaptation was "Pessimism means never having to say you're disappointed."

Time has mellowed me from that attitude. And it took some great effort, I admit. But looking at the positive side of situations has proven to be a great antidote to the negative outlook I used to have. And, the truth is, you can change your attitude anytime you are ready to try.

I remember once in a meeting of my recovery program (which, since I've never actually stated it yet, is Alcoholics Anonymous). I had gone to the meeting in somewhat a bit of a funk, not really in a good mood. At the meeting the people in the room would begin the meeting  by introducing themselves: "Hi. I'm Joe and I'm an alcoholic." "I'm Bill and I'm an alcoholic." When it came around to me I introduced myself as "a giddy and grateful recovering alcoholic." I got a laugh from the group, and wonder of wonders, my attitude changed instantly. I was no longer in a funk. All it took was a decision to try to change my outlook.

I hope that you yourself are in a good frame of mind. If not, may I suggest this simple idea? Just try to find the diamond in that muck and shine it up. It will work wonders.

May your spiritual journey be fruitful.

Quiggy 

Goals vs. Pipe Dreams

 

 

 

 

In the previous entry on this blog (Happiness and Worry Cannot Coexist), I spent some time expounding on the idea that I wasted much of my life on dreaming of lofty goals for the future. I necessarily did not mean that future goals were something to be avoided entirely. My main point was that spending so much time thinking about the future and those lofty (and many times unattainable) goals. or more accurately defined as "pipe dreams",  detracted from the time I could have spent enjoying the present.

As I draw nearer to the end of this life, however, I have returned to thinking about a couple of those goals. Nothing, mind you, that would be unfeasible, and thus move into the realm of "pipe dreams", just goals that are accessible given my current situation. One in particular is actually possible and after talking with someone who could help me accomplish that goal, I think it may actually come to fruition.

I admit I never heard him say it myself, but apparently my maternal grandfather thought I would grow up to be a preacher.  (I heard this from my maternal grandmother several years after his death.) Of course, my life took a different path, and I never graduated to go to divinity school.  I could listen to various preachers in churches and sort of fantasize about being able to do the same, but it would seem that such dreams were out of my reach.

After all, not only did I suffer from a fear of public speaking, I didn't think I actually knew enough about scriptures to qualify.  But things have changed recently. I have been in conversations with the pastor at my church and he has been receptive to the idea of allowing me to take the pulpit at sometime in the near future.

The good thing is, after several years in a recovery program, in which I have had the privilege and opportunity to share, I no longer have that fear of public speaking. It turns out that public speaking is not the devastating nightmare I had previously imagined it to be.  On the other hand, I still have no degree in divinity,  but my pastor has assured me that I can handle that problem fairly well without the sheepskin.

The trick of course, is not to allow the feasible translate into the unfeasible. A borderline egocentric fellow  might imagine that everyone in the church comes forward at altar call and rededicates their life. I don't want to get caught in THAT trap. Too many times over the past 60+ years I have fantasized about having a greater impact than I was ever capable of achieving on my own merit. Guess what? I enjoyed having roles in school plays, but I knew I was never going to be Oscar material. Staying grounded is the best way to approach life.

As for those other goals? Well, realistically, I have to admit that my financial status here may make at least one of them be in the realm of "not bloody likely" as my British friends would say.  But those don't occupy my waking moments very much.  I'd much rather spend my time thinking about how I may be of help to people in the here and now rather than some uncertain future.  

May your spiritual journey be fruitful.

Quiggy