Sticky Stones?

Serendipity and Solace

Ever since I came across the game "Grief (as I experience it)" by Vian Nguyen (available here), I've wanted to use it at chapel. It seemed like the perfect complement for our "Faith in Life" series. FiL is a small group where people can bring experiences in their lives, and explore the spiritual/religious elements and issues raised. "Grief" is an excellent vehicle for starting these conversations, providing thought-provoking questions on matters such as loss, anger and acceptance.

However, finding the time and energy to implement it has taken awhile. It's been persistently on the back-burner. I've finally got my act together, breaking the lethargy by making bespoke cards. The game as described uses a traditional deck alongside a sheet of questions, but I thought having custom cards would help it run more smoothly.

This step felt like an accomplishment, so I sat down and perused the questions. My eye caught "How do you think about the people who are no longer with you?"

I began by thinking about grandparents, relatives, congregants, people I knew who had died in my lifetime. But then I thought how the question doesn't actually say that - it says 'no longer with you.' So I began thinking about estrangement, cutting off, the expression "You're dead to me" and how that 'death within life' exists.

Then a knock on the door.

It is strange for me to get a knock on the door of my office. There are other people around but they rarely need my input. Anyone visiting me needs to be let in so I usually meet them at the chapel entrance.

I open the door, and see someone I hadn't seen for two years. Someone who had spoken hurtful words to my family. Possibly more of ignorance than malice, but I have always had my suspicions. Whether intentional or not, the pain of those words were such that my wife and I had chosen absence as protection.

(I feel as though I am seeking to justify myself)

I feel unable to share much of the conversation - it really isn't my story to tell. But amidst tears, explanations and apologies, I felt the hurt from those previous encounters returning. We parted ways.

Sitting back, and trying to set aside the strangeness of serendipity, I found myself recalling some words of John Hamilton Thom (again, weirdly some words I re-encountered a few days previously). Thom was a minister in the 1800s; in one of his extensive sermons he remarked that we should avoid not just the temptation to not forgive, but also the temptation to forgive in the wrong way:

[Jesus] was not the forgiveness of one who could look too lightly on the nature of offenses, or who was moved to a candid and generous remission by remembering his own participation in the transgressions he forgave.(JH Thom, "Christ the Revealer", p.29)

This excerpt exists within a larger section on temptation, looking beyond physical and traditional. Being tempted to not forgive; but also being tempted to forgive too quickly.

I had appreciated the sentiment for a long time, but found myself feeling the full weight of its impact at that moment. Forgiveness is no idle choice. When we forgive we must have an idea of what we are forgiving. Without this we fail to honour the fullness of our lives.

I hope I can get to a point of forgiveness, but acknowledge that this will involve some legwork. Often forgiveness is framed as the "hot stone" that we fail to put down. Or we are asked to remember the context of the action and the actor - "To know all is to forgive all" Without removing these methods of exploring forgiveness, I think we also need to give some reflective time to our injuries. Doing this makes forgiveness more powerful when it comes.

I spoke on this a couple hours later at our Wednesday Worship. I left it unresolved, because in some way that is what it is, and that is where we are in life. Always moving, always in the mystery. Always in a liminal space of possibility, made real through forgiveness.