{"id":1511,"date":"2019-09-24T20:38:03","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T00:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/?p=1511"},"modified":"2019-09-26T22:53:44","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T02:53:44","slug":"forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/?p=1511","title":{"rendered":"Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cSay you\u2019re sorry!\u201d \nThese words echo inside of me as if it were yesterday.  They were words that my dad would yell at us,\nwhen my sisters and I would fight.  I\ntrust that he had good intentions.  This\nis the best that he could do with teaching us about conflict resolution.  If I knew what was good for me, I knew that I\nwould have to utter those words.  So, out\nthey came.  \u201cMsorry.\u201d  There.  I got it out. \nAs quickly as I could, though it really held no meaning for me.  My relationship with being sorry and\nforgiveness has been a challenging one. \nOne might think that after all of these decades, I would have it worked\nout.  I continue to work on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a gathering of members of Kol Hai, a community of Jewish\nRenewal, our leader, Shir Yaakov spoke of this special time of year.  In preparing for the High Holy Days, there is\na time to pause, and reflect.  It occurs the\nSaturday night before Rosh Hashanah. \nSelichot is the name of the service. \nForgiveness is the theme. \nBeautiful melodies and sincere words of gratitude were shared at this\nlate night get together.  Then Shir spoke\nof forgiveness.  \u201cDo we need to ask for\nsomeone\u2019s forgiveness?  Have we done\nsomething hurtful this past year?  Whom\ndo we need to forgive?  What about\nourselves?  This is the time.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Shir spoke, I did an inventory of the year.  Like a rolodex, my mind was scanning the\npeople close to me and not so close.  Did\nI hurt anyone?  Who has hurt me?  As best as I can remember, I had offered\napologies to people I may have hurt during the year.  My apologies have come a long way since those\nI whispered to my sisters.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shir was gently strumming his guitar and humming beautiful tunes.  It was around that time that I welled\nup.  Tears started rolling.  Maya.  She\nis the one that I have not yet forgiven. \nThis has been quite troubling to me. \nWhat does it mean to forgive?  Forgiveness,\nforgiving someone, forgiving Maya, is an offering of acceptance.  My inner voice is tangling two phrases\ntogether. \u201cI forgive you,\u201d is another way to say, \u201cI accept you for your\naction.\u201d  Forgiving Maya for making a\nfatal choice would be accepting this choice. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is tricky.  On a\ncertain level, I am accepting life without Maya.  After all, I am still here.  I am living in my day to day (which at times,\nI honestly think is remarkable). \nHowever, I have not accepted Maya\u2019s mistake.  I have not forgiven her.  I fear that forgiveness, acceptance of this\nnature, may mean being at peace with this.  I do not have it in me now to hold that peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am spinning with this one. \nI am searching.  I welcome your\nthoughts and feelings.  What does\nforgiving someone mean to you?  If\nsharing a comment in this public post is uncomfortable for you, I\nunderstand.  If you would like to contact\nme another way with your thoughts, I would love to hear from you.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wishing you a sweet and healthy New Year.  Shana Tova.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Harvesting apples at Jenkins-Luekin Orchard, Fall 2010<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSay you\u2019re sorry!\u201d  These words echo inside of me as if it were yesterday.  They were words that my dad would yell at us, when my sisters and I would fight.  I trust that he had good intentions.  This is the best that he could do with teaching us about conflict resolution.  If I knew…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gifts-since"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p720L0-on","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1511"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1514,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions\/1514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayasgifts.elisegold.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}