Justice and Mercy

 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. 

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

Justice & Mercy. Justice AND Mercy.  These two words have been echoing in my head for days now.  At least since Victims Services contacted me Friday afternoon to confirm the sentencing hearing for the woman who attacked me last summer would be going ahead on Tuesday afternoon.  It's a complicated set of emotions I'm feeling right now.  Relief at finally drawing a line under the incident, oddly disappointed there will be no trial (something in my heart and head wants definitive answers to "WHY?" - something I long ago realized we may never have this side of Heaven to a lot of things)  And tumble of other emotions, largely sorrow that my family and friends have had to suffer this too, and something else I can't define, because somehow I'm actually okay.  (In truth though I DO know why, or how, I'm okay.  That would be, quite simply, Jesus. Holy Spirit, my Father dispatching angels to my side that awful day)

The dictionary defines justice as the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness and mercy as compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power; compassion, pity, or benevolence.

We so often speak of justice when what we mean is closer to revenge and a cry for punishment, and punitive punishment at that.  Mercy doesn't even come in to it.  Do I believe that crimes and misdeeds don't require consequences and punishment? Not at all.  There must be consequences to our actions and punishment for our crimes.  

And yet we ALL mis-step and break the rules sometimes -albeit rules without much impact on society as a whole and with no repercussions.

Since my recovery, miraculously speedy, I have had many, many conversations with people about the eventual legal outcome of the events.  Apart from me, those intimately affected - my friends and colleagues, my sisters, all want vengeful, "throw the book" at her punishment.  "Lock her up, throw away the key", let her suffer immensely for what she did.  I get it. I do. And yet I'm torn.  Weird, I know, and very hard to explain, but let me try.  Do I want her punished? Without a doubt.  I am hoping for a long sentence, running consecutive, not concurrent, for every charge.  But I am also hoping she gets help. Real, long lasting psychological help. Do I think mental illness excuses her behaviour? Absolutely not.  She was tested - and I know she had a plan, thought out and executed; she did not "snap" one day and suffer a mental break. But I watched her devolve, heard the desperation that led her to think there was no other way out.  And I firmly believe no one should ever feel so alone.   And so I sit on some metaphoric fence, my ethics and belief systems at a tug of war with my need for retribution.  And there lies mercy.  Compassion - or rather, pity.  My understanding of the need for forgiveness (I'm not there yet).  

I admit too, that I am angry.  Not for what she did to me - not that I don't have reason to be.  I just learned a long time ago not to waste energy on regret.  I did my job, and I would do it again.  I am angry that the staff in our office had offered her nothing but kindness and compassion; we were working to help her find her way out of a bad situation, and she spat on all of that, ground it under her heel.  And in doing that potentially barred the way for countless others to find the help we offer.  A less resilient team would have folded, they rallied and found a way to move forward.  Today, people have to navigate locked doors and plexiglass shields, and my friends live with anxiety and fear of raised voices, of angry, hurting language, and the very broken people we are there to help.  And yet we go on.  Offer words of hope and comfort, the navigational tools to find the way through.

I'm not as good as I should be, abiding by the requirements mentioned in the verse I quoted.  But I am trying, and the closer I come to walking humbly with my God, the easier it is to seek, and recognize, real justice, and to love mercy.  I have to trust too in Romans 12:19: Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.   At the end of the day, I don't want the responsibility if I'm honest.  I'm too quick to judge, too ruled by emotion, too ready to hold every one to my own personal standard.   God's justice, while much slower than I'd like, is far more perfect, and tempered with His mercy.  And I know that come what may my assailant will have to live forever with the knowledge of what she tried to do to me.  God's plan for my life is just bigger than hers was.

Be well friends, and may you ever have justice and mercy in equal measure

Be Still - The Battle Against Busyness

We live in an increasingly busy world, and have become human doings not human beings.  Scroll through the internet for more than 5 minutes and you will stumble over posts of people in their picture perfect houses with their picture perfect families; showing you "life hacks" to simplify some random task you probably didn't realize was problematic.  People brag, oddly, about how tired they are, how busy and overworked or overwhelmed.  I have never quite understood this.  This is the "Cult of Busy", a phrase I know I stole from somewhere, just don't ask me where.  

One of my favourite Bible verses is Habakkuk 2:20: "The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him".  Like it, and also a favourite is Psalm 46:10a: "Be still and know that I am God".  Having done a little research (very little, but still...) I know the stillness called for here is not necessarily quite in line with my private interpretation, but I think it stands.  In a world so chaotic and busy a little stillness is often called for.  Personally it is something I cherish - the early morning hour before my day starts (once before my children were up and about), a meditative soak under the stars at the end of the day have become sacred bookends to my days.  I enjoy the silence, the quiet, alone with my thoughts, in communion with something much bigger than me.  

In a world overflowing with busy - the demands of work and family, of bills to pay, a household to manage, exams to prepare for - whatever your stresses might be - taking a moment to pause through the day may seem impossible.  We can all start to feel like there just aren't enough hours in the day, or days in the week.  And this is why I think it's so important to set aside time to just breathe, to be grateful for what you have, and maybe even what you don't have!  I know the days I don't get up a little earlier than I'd like to read a devotion or two and pray, to savour a good cup of coffee in the stillness the day comes at me in a rush and I feel far more scattered and impatient, less able to cope with even the most ordinary of unexpected crises.  And taking a few minutes at the end of the day, to breathe and process the day's events gives me peace for a good night's rest.  Some of this is simple self care, a lot of it is reconnecting with the Source of my peace and strength.  Taking time for myself, to pray, to meditate, to just breathe feeds my soul.  Why do we believe we need to wait for that two week vacation that comes with its own stresses of budget and travel and packing?  And I do look forward to my vacations, whether they are on a beach with my sisters or reading on my deck with a cold beer, lest you think I'm saying vacations aren't important.  

Taking time out daily feeds the soul, and, despite what my friends who say there are deadlines and just so much to do, lets you get more done, not less, because you've given yourself a chance to recentre, to reconnect, to clear the cobwebs and consider what really matters.  I can hear several of my friends, and my lovely daughter too, telling me they don't like to be alone with their thoughts.  I have been there, turning on the TV for company as soon as I walked through the door.  I know all about the whispers and lies that can shout even louder if we don't drown them out with doing, with noise and distractions.  And what if we - just for a moment- stood still in the silence?  What if we stopped fleeing those murmuring voices we're so busy trying to drown out with distraction and noise of our own?  Maybe we'd begin to see them for what they are, whining mosquitos not shrieking pterodactyls.  And you can swat a mosquito.  Centering yourself, being comfortable with the quiet, with the pause, what peace it will bring, what strength and sureness.

I challenge you today to find even five minutes to be still.  Now, since I feel like I've lost my train of thought, I'll sign off, and pick up more about being still in my next post.

Where are your feet planted?

 Stretching limbs

Toward Heaven;

A cloudless summer sky

River clear and sparkling,

Ribbon of song

Storm clouds threaten,

The laughing river

Swells

A raging torrent;

The song now an angry roar

In the midst of this

The tree stands firm

Roots deep beneath the floodplain

Unmoved

Stretching Heavenward

Only kissed by rain.

(November 2011)

I have been toying with what my next post was supposed to be for almost 2 weeks now.  What I keep coming back to is my roots.  I was reviewing some old posts earlier this week and came across this poem, attached to a post about the depth of our roots.  

I have a funny affection for dandelions.  I know, I know, no one wants these pesky little plants springing up in their lawns and gardens, but take a step back with me for a moment.  Bright dandelion flowers are among the first harbingers of spring.  No one minds if children pluck them.  I've never sampled them, but I hear dandelion greens are tasty, and that the roasted roots make a fair substitute for coffee (although I'd argue that for some things there is no substitute).  I have read that dandelions thrive where the soil is poor, and help regenerate it.  What I do know is that dandelions thrive in the most inhospitable places, forcing their way through concrete, resisting gardeners' efforts to eradicate them.

I like that.  Brilliantly showy, resisting removal, and gone to seed carrying wishes to the sky.

Maybe it's a bit of a stretch for you, especially if you've spent much time on your knees digging their seemingly endless roots out of the grass, to see them a a metaphor for resilience.

Often when we're asked about our roots we refer to our family trees, whether we dig into genealogy or put stock in our forefathers and mothers ethnicity, or we just know a little about our grandparents' stories.    Maybe our families are sources of pain and regret rather than strength.  Were you taught to nurse your wounds or dust yourself off and keep moving?   

But for some of us there is a root system that goes even deeper.  I was raised going to church every Sunday.  I may have wandered from my Roman Catholic upbringing, but those roots remain, informing my personal faith today.  It would be almost impossible for me to leave behind all that I was taught, and all I absorbed even when the Mass went far beyond my childish understanding.  The need for reverence, and ritual, for the comfort of the familiar, even as I have stepped into a church (I won't say religious - because to my mind religion is about rules and not relationships - a weird point of argument I know) system that goes deeper, into a relationship with a very real and very present loving God.    But I digress.  I'm terribly good at that!  When I got hurt this past summer I wound up in the ICU.  It was expected, once it became clear I would recover, I would be there for several weeks.  In a matter of days I was moved to the regular ward, and in just over a week (eight days, in fact) I was sent home.  When the surgeon came in to remove the tracheotomy and discharge me asked about my support systems at home - both for my physical and psychological care, without hesitation I told him that not only do I have a great network of friends and family supporting me, but I know where my feet are planted.

I know, beyond any shadow of doubt, who I am as a follower of Jesus.  I know that God loves me as a beloved child, and my feet are firmly planted on the Rock that is my faith.  Like the precocious and tenacious dandelion, I will rise again every time life knocks me down, bloom brightly and spread hope and joy on the wind.

So, as the snow finally gives way and you begin to see those bright yellow harbingers of spring, when you see those tenacious leaves pushing their way through the cracks in the sidewalk, smile a little and take the lesson of perseverance.  And don't forget to make an audacious wish when you blow those fluffy white seeds into the breeze.

Forgive Yourself

We've all played the game of "What if".  It can be an amusing pastime to speculate on how our lives might look if we had chosen some other path - married the other guy, didn't marry the one we did, chose another career path, on and on.  On the other hand it can be deadly to our self esteem as we look too long in the rear view mirror and wonder "if only".   I mentioned in my last post about being replaced in my husband's affections, and for a long time beat myself up for not being tall, thin, a wide-eyed ingenue.  Obviously I couldn't be younger, and being blonde would just look silly, but I wished I could have been other than I was.  I did realize that I am pretty awesome just as I am (not to say I probably could use a bit of improvement here and there) and his failure to see what makes me special is a fault of his not mine.  I actually find it amusing to write that statement since one of the things that drove him nuts as a people pleaser was that I am not.  Take me as I am, no apologies.  If you don't like me, that's on you.  The paradox is unfathomable, but it is part and parcel of our human condition.

All of this is to say, when we consider who we need to forgive, and why we need to, we need to first look in the mirror.  I think often the things that upset us most in others is the trait or habit we like least in ourselves.  Oh, not always.  Sometimes it's a thing that reminds us to closely of someone in our past who caused us pain, but that is not my point today.

You have probably heard the adage "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Mark 12:31) even if you don't turn to Bible passages as a part of your personal creed.  But have you ever considered how hard it is to do this if you don't love yourself first?  I'm not advocating selfish, self-serving narcissism, but a genuine understanding that you are valuable, beautiful, that your opinions matter, that you deserve kindness and respect.  The corollary of this is equally true.  Until you forgive yourself your faults and failures it will be difficult, if not impossible, to forgive anyone else.   If you happened upon someone mistreating or speaking ill of someone you cared about would you not interrupt them with what you knew to be the truth?  Perhaps a kind explanation of why they had acted the way the did?  Of course you would.  When your friend says she's stupid, or fat, or ugly, a bad mom - the list goes on - do you not tell her she is in fact beautiful, kind, wiser than she knows, a good mom who's doing her best?  Can you not afford the same courtesy to yourself?  If you're a mother yourself (or a dad, this is irrespective of gender) do you want to model to your children self rejection?  

We have all made mistakes.  Been in relationships we never should have been in, or gotten out of sooner.  We have all felt rejected for being exactly who we are - which drives us to wear a mask, to pretend to be other than who we are (which is exhausting in it's own right, and makes us hate ourselves even more!).  We lose our tempers with our kids, or feed them McDonald's three times some weeks.  Look in the mirror.  Look into your eyes, deep.  See the hurting, broken person hiding there, and forgive them.  We are all doing the best we can with what we know today.  Tomorrow, when you know better, do better.

I can hear you.  You're telling me I don't understand.  I do.  I have spoken out of turn and been misunderstood.  I have felt badly for not having money to give my kids stuff, for being too tired to cook another meal no one was going to eat and making KD and hot dogs or chicken nuggets, again.  The specifics of your story will differ from mine, but the truth is we're all doing our best, playing the hand we have been dealt.  It's ok, you're ok, just keep putting one foot in front of the other and move forward.

Forgiveness

 Oh, forgiveness.  No sweeter gift, few more difficult commands.  

I struggled for several days, on where to begin in explaining (for lack of a better word) the foundations of my strength and fortitude.  And then it became clear that forgiveness was where I needed to start.  And then I tried to understand why here, why not with The Rock on which my feet are firmly planted, the faith I choose to walk in every day.  Why not love, or peace, or choosing joy?  It came to me last night, a rare night where sleep eluded me.  Forgiveness was the first lesson I learned when I had to find my feet again after my world was torn apart by betrayal and divorce.  

It was 27 years ago now.  My husband and I had two beautiful little boys and we had hit a "rough patch".  I thought we were finding our way through and was, in my head, beginning to make plans for a 10 year anniversary celebration.  And then I learned about the affair.  She was my friend, a girl I loved and mentored; our babysitter.  Everything I was not - younger, blonde, tall, slender, interested in his favourite hobbies.  Everything I had built my life around, all the things I thought I could rely on - love, loyalty, friendship, came crashing down around me.  I cried that night until I literally could not see.  

In the immediate aftermath he and I oddly got alone fairly well.  My mother kept telling me to get angry, afraid, I think, that I would just roll over and meekly accept what he would decide was my due.  Eventually we found a house for me to move in to, and once we were officially separated and I learned she had moved in with him on the very heels of my departure.  It was then that fury overtook me.  I was almost irrational; I relished every story from acquaintances who encountered the two of them telling me how awful they looked.  I could barely be civil.

I don't know how long it took until my anger exhausted me.  I began to realize that that was all I talked about - the wrongs done to me, with little acknowledgement of my own wrongdoing.  I felt very alone, and I had begun to define myself as divorced, as a rejected woman.  I adored my sons, but had become the weekend parent; he had day to day care and I didn't know who I was outside of wife and mother.  

I distinctly remember the day I was looking at myself in the mirror - and I did not like the girl staring back at me.  All I could see was hurt and bitterness, there was no joy or hope left.  I was blank and empty.  A few days later I sat down for coffee with my pastor and told him I knew I needed to forgive them to move forward but I didn't know how.  "How do I forgive?"  I asked.  I wanted a plan, steps to take, a checklist - something that made sense.  What he told me left me even more perplexed and frustrated, disappointed.  "Just put it on the back burner," he said.  Let it alone.  This was not the answer I wanted.  I wanted action.  But I tucked his words away and kept trying to rediscover me.  

Again, I don't know how long, but some time later I woke up from a strange dream, and I had that weird sensation you get when your ears are plugged and they finally "pop".  You don't realize your hearing has been muffled until it isn't any more.  And in that moment I realized I had somehow let all the hurt and bitterness go.

I'd like to tell you it was just that easy.  Truth is it was an ongoing thing.  Somewhere along the way we learned to work together as parents.  Our sons are grown and we have been able to visit amicably at graduations, weddings and funerals.  His marriage to her didn't last, and several years ago I received a letter from her apologizing, asking my forgiveness, admitting she finally realized what I had suffered.  And I was able to honestly reply that I had forgiven her years before and had found my own level ground.  I've learned, slowly, to acknowledge my hurts, put them aside and forgive - and it (usually) has gotten easier.

Forgiveness is no easy thing.  People will hurt us, almost always those closest to us, the ones we have entrusted with our most vulnerable selves.   Sometimes we can just walk away from the person who hurt us, close the door, end the relationship - but without forgiving the wrong the wound will fester and poison your heart as surely as arsenic.  We hear it said "forgive and forget", and perhaps that's where so many of us struggle with forgiving.  Somehow we got the notion that forgiving someone is saying what they did to us was okay.  But the truth is the opposite.  The wrong that was done remains wrong, and we should be mindful of it as we rebuild boundaries.  Perhaps that person needs to be held at arm's length now, no longer allowed the same intimacies, perhaps they need to be fenced off completely.  Forgiveness sets us free to move forward, no longer shackled to past wrongs.

We cannot hold on to hurt waiting for apologies or acknowledgement.  Like the jerk who cuts you off on the highway, leaving you cursing and gesticulating in anger or fear, he has no idea of your distress, he is blithely motoring along.  You alone are upset, and your raging is affecting your passengers-those who did you no wrong.  I am not saying we should not feel hurt or angry, or that we are not justified in wanting to be avenged.  But we cannot live there, it will soon become a prison of our own making and will colour our responses to other relationships - it may in fact cause us to misread benign comments an actions as negative.  

I'm no expert.  I have no degrees or accreditations.  But I have lived this.  And the story I shared was not an isolated event.  I wish I could say I never got hurt again.  But there were other loves, other friends, people I trusted, respected, relied on, who let me down, betrayed me, rejected me.  And some I am still learning to forgive.  I think I've moved on and some memory brings it all rushing back.

You may ask what you can do to aid the process.  I can only tell you what has worked for me.  I write letters.  I don't send them.  But I pour out all my anger and hurt feelings, outline all the wrongdoing I feel has been leveled at me.  I weep and rage and shake my fist at Heaven (He can take it, I promise).  I have letters stashed away, and some I have burned.  Others I have folded carefully and marked with a cross, telling myself to leave the hurt there, at the foot of the cross.  My oldest and dearest friend tells me she adds another step to this - she then writes the reply she needs to hear, the apology, the regret, the acknowledgement of the grief. 

I suppose you might by now be asking what forgiveness, learning to forgive, being (relatively) quick to forgive, has to do with internal fortitude, with my ability to recuperate so quickly after the trauma of this past summer and to live without the trauma everyone wants to assume I must carry.  There are two important facts here.  One, the woman who attacked me doesn't matter enough for me to carry her in my heart.  She didn't target me, I was just the means to an end, and end she didn't get.  Secondly, forgiving negates the power your assailant has over you.  I'm sure you've heard it said that holding a grudge is like letting someone live rent free in your head.  Letting that go, forgiving the wrong evicts them and keeps them from taking up precious space in your heart.  Eventually  when you trip across that person, whether in conversation or in real life, you will find they just don't matter.  Your heart won't clench in your chest, your blood won't run cold (or hot, depends on whether the wound caused anger or fear).  Maybe laughing about it might be a stretch for now, but you can take the lesson and move forward. 

Forgiveness is far from easy.  I apologize if I seem blithe, if you feel like I don't understand your particular circumstance.  And often them first person we need to forgive is ourselves. And that, I think, will be my next post.  

Miss You

 I still miss you.  

Sometimes.

Or, maybe,

I miss the Idea of You,

of the future I envisioned. 

A future of children, grandchildren, of companionable silences

  of adventures, conversations, a hand to hold....

But when I seek my bed at night, heart heavy with loneliness,

   longing to be held, to be heard and seen -

I remember.

I remember all the nights I wept alone,

ached to be understood

while you slept, careless.

I remember the lonely hours with you; the disappointment and hurt.

All the times I needed you to run to me

  and you sauntered instead.

All the excuses I made for you,

excuses that sounded falser with every repetition....

And yet.  And yet -

I still miss you, sometimes.

 It's hard to believe it has been almost 5 1/2 years since I last took the time to actually scribe a post.  I could offer a thousand excuses - from losing my mom to a long battle with metastic breast cancer in late 2017 to moving house at the start of 2018; dealing with my teenaged daughter's battle with depression and anxiety and her sexual assault (and was that a cause of or the result of the depression?).  My oldest son convocated from York University in 2019 - proud mama moment there, and married in 2020.  Life is always busy and interesting.  There are so many excuses I could offer, and none of them are truly valid.  Life just got away from me - I was busy just getting through my days.  But here we are at the start of a brand new year, so I think it's time to begin again. Again.

In July of last year, an ordinary Thursday afternoon at the office, a distraught client came in, demanding to speak with the lawyer who was handling her domestic violence matter.  He was not in, and she subsequently took me hostage, and eventually attacked me with a knife, stabbing me multiple times in the throat, neck, scalp and arm.  You can read more about that in the links below (there are others as well)  I won't take up space here with that story.  I've told it many times, and it would be a post in and of itself.  But those events gave me time to consider what I am supposed to be doing here.  Considering the many conversations I have before, and since, I think one of those purposes is to try and share the source of my strength and some of the reasons I look at life the way I do.  

I cannot claim to have all the answers (oh, that I did!) or to have done any academic research.   I have not.  I've lived my life.  I've observed and read, gleaning what I found useful.  Forgive me, my atheist and agnostic friends, I make no apologies for my Christian viewpoint, but understand there is no judgement implied.  And if you have been offended or wounded by those who call themselves followers of Jesus, allow me to apologize on their behalf.  I think they often have the wrong end of the proverbial stick.  But that's a matter for another day.  Take me and my thoughts for what I am - a little confused, quite sarcastic (and sometimes caustic), still figuring out who I am and who I want to be, but sure that one of my callings is to shine some light into the darkness, to say, "it's going to be ok," and "you got this", whatever "this" happens to be.  I apologize if my posts are muddled, I'll try to work through one thing at a time, but I'm quite sure there will be crossover - but I have to start and let the plan reveal itself as I go.  It was my one (ok, one of many) bad habits writing in school - I'd write, then muddy it up to look like a draft, then draft an outline.  I'm a "consider the material, dive in and sort the details later" kind of writer.  If I ever write a book I'll need a phenomenal editor!

So here we go!

Hostage survivor thanks first responders for saving her life | Lethbridge News Now

The Lethbridge Hostage Victim tells the story of their survival - Alberta News (canadatoday.news)