Best Lines: The Holiday Edition

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. – Elizabeth Kubler Ross 

Thoughts on Pre-Deployment Leave

Lord, bid war’s trumpet cease; Fold the whole earth in peace.~Oliver Wendell Holmes

My son leaves for Iraq.  But before that, he leaves me.  I take him to the airport tomorrow.  It will be the last time I touch my son, umblemished by war.  He will return forever changed.  I know this.  Regardless of his physical state of being on the day he returns, he will be forever changed.  As will I be.  I am not a Spartan mom.  I say lay down your shield and stay here with me.  Safe.  Whole.  I keep this to myself.  But he knows.    

I think of poetry I wrote back in the day.  A whole series likening tears to rain.  What did I know back then? Actually alot.  But my boy was too young to go to war.  I still had control and he was not allowed to play with guns.  What did I know of tears back then?   

Another F-ing Thought for the Day

When someone comes with arms open to embrace you, you can’t feel enmity any more.  The act of friendship invites forgiveness.  Tom Tate.

Carpe Diem Y’all, Michele

The F Word

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of attending the United States premier of the Truth in Translation project at Southern Methodist University.  It was a truly powerful experience.  From the back of the program:

“We live in a world that is increasingly driven by fear and vengeance.  This is incompatible with the notion of forgiveness.  Yet we cannot survive unless emotional and perceptual reconciliation can be made.  This story is not just about one country, one context, one event, but about all of us right now, everywhere we look.” – Michael Lessac, Artistic Director, Truth in Translation

At intermission, instead of the usual get-me-to-the-bathroom buzz, the audience sat silent, mesmerized, unwilling to break the spell binding us the them, the actors portraying the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission translators who are telling the stories of both the victims and the perpetrators of the crimes of apartheid in first person.  I sit wondering how.  How does one get to forgiveness after such atrocity? 

Finally standing, I walk to the theater lobby.  The mood reminds me of a post-Lenten service, people walking, not talking, carefully avoiding eye contact.  Large banners, courtesy of The Forgiveness Project, hang from ceiling to floor, pictures of people, their stories underneath, each sharing their personal paths to forgiveness.  

Reading their stories, I’m overwhelmed with both gratitude and shame.  Gratitude for being spared the heart-breaks these people have endured and shame for holding onto the angers and grudges I hold.  They were so large yesterday, but today, in the face of those who’ve made the decision to move past hate and anger, choosing forgiveness and reconciliation instead, they feel small, petty, stupid. 

And in the middle, was this banner.  It helped me get a better grasp around the question of how.

Carpe Diem Y’all, Michele