Forgiveness

I don't go to the movies very often, but I have seen two movies in the theatre recently. I am certain the proximity of these movie-going experiences led me to notice an insight I am about to share (lucky you).

Forgiveness is not something we often talk about in normal cultural circles, and it can be hard to think about forgiveness outside of a religion connotation. But I wonder if thinking about forgiveness as something particularly human and earthy, rather than something spiritual and celestial, might not be a way of understanding what is indeed divine about forgiveness.

In the movie version of Foer's novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a scene near the end of the move highlights one aspect of forgiveness. Oskar has been carrying around this incredible guilt about not picking up the phone when his dad called from the towers - what ended up being, in fact, his dad's last words. The weight of this guilt gave Oskar "heavy boots" and drove him to an obsessive search for a key that he felt sure his father had meant for him to find and would unlock a wonderful secret about his father.

In an anticlimactic moment, for Oskar and for moviegoers, we discover the key belongs to a stranger. But what happens when Oskar finds this stranger becomes a sort of "key" in itself. Oskar had told no one, not his grandmother, not his grandfather, not his mother, no one, about the betrayal of his father through his inability to pick up the phone. For some reason, Oskar decides to tell this complete stranger, and at the end of his story he begs the man to forgive him.

How odd, I thought, to ask forgiveness from someone who had nothing to do with what you felt you needed forgiving for. The stranger resisted telling Oskar "I forgive you," until Oskar's tears and adamant insistence finally led him to say "I forgive you." The relief Oskar immediately felt was telling - it pointed to some deep human need to have the words "I forgive you" verbally pronounced over us.

Second movie: The movie version of Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. Also near the end of this flick in a rather comical mock confession-box moment on the campus of Reed College where Don, as the new "pope" for a year, prepares to hear his first set of confessions. He reverses the role of confessor and confessee and asks his predecessor to forgive him for representing, in that moment, the priests who had forever damaged his friend when he was younger. Again we have resistance to saying "I forgive you," but this time because the person saying "I forgive you" was having to let go of a great deal of hurt and anger. But like Oskar, the relief felt by saying the words "I forgive you" was quite evident.

I came away from these two movies thinking about the power of both saying and hearing the words "I forgive you," and then wondering why this powerful phrase does not figure into our cultural lexicon in a more substantial way. I am not done pondering this yet, but I feel strongly that thinking about forgiveness as a mark of our humanity, as a central human need, is an important concept that we've lost somewhere along the way.  

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,
I apologize for my absence and disloyalty. I know it's not your fault, but I just found myself more attracted to the new and glittery twitter, pininterest, instagram, and iPhone app form of Facebook. I'm not saying you need to be newer and more glittery, the fault is all mine. Besides, these things are no longer new nor are they glittery (the latter may be because I need to clean the surface of my phone, but that's beside the point).

Since it is the end of the semester I could pull out the usual excuses about being so busy with grading, etc.  but as you can see I am not doing that; I am being completely honest with you about my behavior.

Now I need you to be completely honest with me. What are you good for? I yelled this at Siri one time and she pulled up a list of everything she had been programmed to do, but that's not really the kind of answer I'm looking for here. I really want to know how my blog benefits something or someone. Lets say I devote an hour a week to a blog post, plus all the brain space that goes into thinking "is this blog worthy?" every time I experience something or read something or hear something (plus the brain space to keep straight what is appropriate material for Facebook vs. twitter vs blog).

This is not a break-up speech, please don't look at me like that. I'm just trying to have an honest, genuine conversation. A reassessment, time for reflection, kind of thing. So here are a few of my thoughts about why we are good together, and I'd love to hear yours of course:

Selfish reason #1: our culture is so busy, we leave little time for reflecting. Its hard to grow and learn without time for reflecting. The time I spend blogging is a form of reflection that will help me learn and grow.

Selfish reason #2: blogging can improve my writing because it's less restrictive than academic writing, encourages creativity, and at the same time its public nature holds me accountable to a higher quality of writing than would a private journal.

Selfish reason #3: supposedly blogging can be good for your career if you create enough traffic and create a niche for yourself. I'm still not sure that I want to turn this blog into a career pep rally for myself, but I gotta admit that reason lurks somewhere in the back of my mind.

Selfless reason #1: I'm going through a transition period that a lot of people go through (moving, starting a new job) and perhaps people can learn from my mistakes and not have to make those mistakes themselves.

Selfless reason #2: people enjoy being part of a community, and blogs can help people feel a sense of community. People who read my blog and are able to connect with something fundamental in it may feel a sense of belonging they need.

Selfless reason #3: I cannot think of another selfless reason, which points to my initial hunch - that this blog is more for me than for anyone else. I wonder if that matters or not?