Thursday, March 31, 2017

Feeling the Forgiven-ness?

A neighbour in recovery for more than a decade now recently shared about a sponsee he is meeting with, who is having trouble accepting forgiveness for the years of neglectful and abusive parenting she practiced because of her addiction to alcohol.  She knows and doesn't doubt the words and promise of forgiveness.  But she just doesn't feel it.  She can't yet forgive herself -- or let herself be forgiven.

My neighbour thought that I, being a minister of the the Gospel, might have some advice or wisdom to share about how he could help his sponsee.  When I confessed I had no simple answer or formula, would have to mull it over, and that I myself have struggled a lot with feeling forgiven, he was not shocked.  "I guess what you're telling me, is that you're human, too," he said, with a warm smile, as he got in his car to get on with his business for the day.

Forgiveness happens a lot in our life.  How could we get through the days without it?  Without the day by day acts of grace that others extend us for the hurts we cause?  That we extend to others, that set both us and them free from hurts we have felt at their hands? 

But what about that big feeling of forgiveness?  Being free of the weight of a lifetime of mistakes, bad choices, hurt, failure?  Of hurts caused to others that seem endless in their effect, and that over and over again spark debilitating feelings of guilt and regret?  In other words, are unforgiveable in a lasting sense?

The closest I have come, I think, to feeling the depth and breadth of forgiveness to address that kind of guilt, was about four years ago.  I was at a week-long residential program of training for spiritual direction.  The week involved group meditation, daily body-work (a kind of spiritual dancing!), creative exploration every afternoon of our own spirit in art and drama, massage and play, as well as more traditional guided meditation, prayer and journaling.

And it was in the middle of that week that I found myself led completely out of the blue (or so it seemed) in my personal prayer and journaling time to read Isaiah 40 -- that wonderful hinge chapter in the Book of Isaiah, where the hard and unrelenting message of judgement in First Isaiah (chapters 1-39) turns to the gracious and liberating message of forgiveness and new life in Second Isaiah (chapter 40-55).  It begins with the marvelous words:

 Comfort, O comfort my people,
    says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
that she has served her term,
    that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.

I knew the words almost by heart.  We read them every Advent.  But this time what they were saying hit me like a ton of bricks.  Massive, dark, imprisoning structures of guilt and regret built up over the years around hurts that I have caused others I love, came crashing to the ground.  I have served a long enough sentence?  I have paid the penalty?  I have even suffered twice what I deserved -- at my own hands or God's, and now I am free to go ... go and live my life?

It was more than I could hope for.  For so long it had been more than I could accept.  But at that moment it penetrated all my defences and I felt a joy and freedom that I can neither forget nor deny.

And whenever I find the prison walls going up again, I do what I can to recall that moment when the walls came tumbling down.

What made it happen then, in a way I had not known before?

Was it because of the wholistic activity of that week?  That this was more than just words I was reading and praying over, and more than just private or one-on-one spiritual direction and meditation?  

I was part of a group of fellow-travelers, welcomed and welcoming.  Together we were expressing and exploring our spirits in bodily movement, art and drama.  We were accessing our imaginations and discovering the truth of God in our companionship, in our imaginations, in our memories, and in our bodies. And was that the too-often-neglected way to reach my inner-est spirit and deepest heart?

Protestants don't always practice such wholistic spirituality.  In our worship, for instance, we focus a lot on the read and spoken Word, and on sacraments that we regard as mere signs or symbols rather than as tangible-physical-literal vessels and bearers of the presence of God and Christ.  And in our personal spiritual exercises, again there's a heavy emphasis on reading and writing words, and if we want anything more wholistically physical we often have to go outside and apart from the church -- to find it in yoga classes, art groups, cycling and walking groups, and who knows what else.

Martin Luther, who also struggled with that big, deep-down side of forgiveness, often lamented that in getting rid of the sacrament of confession, penance and absolution, he ended up denying himself and others of a very physical, tangible, bodily way of acting out a spirit of confession and feeling in a very bodily way the gift of forgiveness.

And perhaps there are also other bodily, physical, imaginative ways that we can learn in our church life to express and explore the love and grace of God in our lives.  I have a feeling we would be well served, and the gospel of God just might be made more alive among and within us.