Monday Morning Meditation #16: True Forgiveness Requires Love

After zipping right along for the last two weeks, this week I got only as far as the next chapter of Numbers. I found the story in Chapter 12 as very relevant to today, to my life, and to the life around me. In this story, Aaron and his wife, Miriam, become upset that Mose had married a Cushite woman and then tried to put themselves on a par with him, saying that God had spoken to them, too (In dreams). Now, there's a great lack of humility. The nasty root of all it seems to be jealousy (and failure to mind one's own Ps and Qs, as the saying went when I was a child.) So, God called them all together and told them why He spoke directly to his servant, Moses, who was a humble man. God was not happy with Miriam and Aaron, however, and after He left, Aaron noticed that Miriam had become white with leprosy. She had to be removed from the community. Aaron turned to Moses, asking him for help, and meek Moses, having apparently never taken umbrage at a brother he clearly loved, turned to God, who ultimately relented and cured Miriam.

Reading: Numbers 12: 1-16

Meditation: This story struck me as containing an important lesson, but I had to read the chapter several times to determine what that might be. (If someone more astute than I considers the lesson to be different than what I have analyzed it to be, please correct me. I love correction; it is the source of my learning.) At first, I thought the story was mainly about jealousy, i.e. Aaron's and Miriam's jealousy of the relationship that Moses had with God. Then, there was the issue of the sister-in-law that they did not like, and also the sense of self-importance expressed in a form of self-aggrandizement as they noted that God communicated with them, too. (Obviously, in a manner different from the way He communicated with Moses -- which could make a person jealous. Each of us has our own individual relationship with God. The relationship that one person has with God should not make another person jealous, but since God gifts individuals differently and human nature being what it is, I could see the chance of baseless jealousy developing.)

After thinking through all that, however, I posit that the story is more about forgiveness and love, the two being inextricably interwoven. How well I know about that woof and warp! A couple of years ago, the president of our union at the organization where I work died suddenly. His best friend took charge of the funeral, and his family flew from out of town. The friend gave the family a list of potential eulogists, with their backgrounds. They chose two others and me. Had they been given the full background, they might have selected differently. The union president had opposed my being hired and not much time had elapsed since I had arrived for him to become supportive. He was, at best, collegial. I, too, was collegial. Actually, I forgave him. After all, he had lost; I had been offered the job over his dissent. So, surprised but willing, I set about to write the eulogy, but I could not. The more I tried, the blanker the page became. The blanker the page became, the foggier my memory became. I could not think of one thing to write, let alone dreaming up those wonderful warm fuzzy phrases for starting and finishing. There really is not a lot of advance writing time for a eulogy, and so the night before the funeral I was facing the prospect of reading a blank sheet the next day. I asked God for help and was led to understand that I had to forgive this man. But I had forgiven him, I argued. No, was the response. Forgiveness is not simply the deliberate pushing aside of malice or resentment. True forgiveness springs from love. You mean, I have to love this guy, honestly, seriously, fully love him? I took in that concept with more than a bit of incredulity. How would that be possible? Well, as we know, with God all things are possible. As I began to think of the good things he had done for several of my employees, the times he had come to me to ask me to bend some rules for the good of one person or another or to take in someone who had run afoul of management in another division, and the way in which he had worked tirelessly, selfless, and humbly for the benefit of the employees, I began to feel both love and respect for him. I wish I had been able to achieve this level of forgiveness while he was alive. The minute that wish crossed my mind, the dam holding back the eulogistic thoughts broke, and ink splattered all over my paper. I had a eulogy, a really decent eulogy, thanks be to God. The next day after I delivered it, my boss said that, based on the warmth of my words, it must have been difficult for me to write that eulogy. How little did he know how right he was -- but for the wrong reason. Several days later, the union president's friend found me in my office and told me that the family asked him to relay to me how meaningful they had found my eulogy. They wanted me to know that it was my words that had started the healing process for them. Now I cannot begin to relay to you the flood of emotions that passed through and out of me upon hearing that, but the most important one was gratitude -- gratitude to God for helping me find the love I needed to write the words the family needed, for the memorable lesson on forgiveness, for a divinely induced change in my attitude toward the person I was eulogizing, for being allowed to be His instrument in healing the family (or at least beginning to heal the family), for the healing that this experience brought me, and for the spiritual growth through which He had led me compassionately but resolutely. How I love God's lessons!

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to keep on giving me lessons, to repent for times that I have been a slow learner or even rejected a lesson that seemed too difficult, to give thanks for His compassion and patience, as well as His resoluteness, and to offer praise for His ability and willingness to reach a person as dense as I can be sometimes/often.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, open to any new understanding with which He is willing to bless me and, if nothing else, then welcoming nothing but His presence. The sheer joy of His presence surpasses any other happiness I have ever experienced.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of inspirational blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the right-hand side of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Have a good day and a week, remembering to forgive others as God forgives us. May you be blessed by the love which follows.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about today's reading or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to copy the image of the mission church; maybe some day my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons, but to date I remain incompetent at the more sophisticated blog stuff. In the interim, you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.