The Rusted Musket

I’ve been ruminating on forgiveness this week because some people need to forgive me and I need to forgive some people, especially the girl at UW Waukesha who walked up to the back of my Highlander today and purposely put a scratch through the Jesus sticker. Bad news for her could have been the fact that I was sitting in the car when she did it. This incident though brought about an important needle of thread and thought for I wondered how I could so easily settle into a madness that refused to forgive this preppy chic for a shenanigan that caused no actual damage to either Jesus, Jesus sticker, or car. Especially since I frequently walk up to God’s allegorical car to not only scratch His “I Am” sticker completely off but then break His windows as well…

Image credit: honeytofla – deviantart

I thanked God for nothing as intense shoulder pain throttled my better judgment on the way home from evening class. The night before I had somehow torqued my arm while sleeping and could barely move it, even a day later. There are no coincidences though and sometimes my books prove this better than anything else. I was in the middle of reading about Christianities desert saints who believed serving God “was not intended to spare them from suffering but to inspire them to choose suffering because through the incarnation suffering has become redemptive.” ¹ Or, as John Chryssavgis put it, “The more profound our personal misery, the more abundant God’s eternal mercy.”

I was seeing nothing profound in my pain, or was I? It was like slamming the door shut with one’s foot in the way, something you feel you should reconsider. For instance, a conversation I had engaged in a few months back swirled about my head. It centered on the French author Simone Weil’s difference between affliction, (the crap of the world) and suffering (participation in Christ’s suffering). One is chance, like a fire leading to ashes and smoke, the other is choice, like a purifying fire leading to redemption. I had missed the opportunity, seen it to late, the choice of transforming my affliction into something more…

Image Credit: Michelle Stone