by Liz | Jun 9, 2013 | main
So, to day is one of those where I am bothered by the fact that forgiving just isn’t alway easy. A day where I find it easy to let the anger rise against someone who hurt someone I care about. I find that more difficult to get past than when someone hurts me directly. Really. Hurt me directly, I can generally find a way to forgive and move on. Hurt my friend or my child, and it requires a lot more work to forgive and move on.
I do so detest spending the energy on anger — the person I’m angry with isn’t a bad person. Clueless at times? Yes. Caught in the middle at times? Yes. And yet, it just jumps up from my gut and plagues me.
I’ve made the first step — the one where you sit and admit that you really are hurting and angry. I’m just not doing so good at giving that anger a good shake and setting it down. I’m not doing so good at not wanting the person I’m angry with to hurt — just a little bit. I want her to feel bad. To own the fact that it was indeed her choice that caused the hurt to someone I care about.
Onward — I’ll just have to sit with it a bit longer it seems… pray for help in letting go… ask Jesus to come sit with me and teach me to accept the hurt and transform it to love. (Yup — He’s got a big task there).
by | Feb 25, 2013 | main
If a teacher would bring up these two terms, I fear the question would be: Contrast and compare transfiguration and transformation. They are different, yes, but, it seems also very intertwined. And, they’ve been on my radar for a couple of days.
Saturday night, USA ran Schindler’s List comercial free, wrapped only in an into and epilogue by Steven Spielberg who spoke about tolerance and about the Shoah Foundation. I had never seen the movie before, and found parts of it twisting my stomach into knots with horror. I can in some ways understand those Holocaust deniers who cannot accept that this happened. This bit of history reflects some of the worst of humanity.
So, how does this play into transfiguration and transformation? Oskar Schindler, of course. Schindler doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Schindler’s transformation into a man who would go to the ends of his world to save his people. Schindler who was transformed in a way by how the Jews he had under his protection had been transfigured for him into human beings, worthy of protection and care. By the end of the movie, the end of WWII in Europe, this man had been changed, almost in spite of himself.
Another theme I found in the movie was just a hint of how the cruelty and inhumanity of the entire cancerous Nazi philosophy and practices twisted those involved. I’m in no way defending Goeth, but there was a glimpse of a deeply disturbed man, fighting against his own humanity. I got a glimpse of how his choices and his world ate away at him, leaving behind a damaged, dangerous individual who couldn’t face himself and struck out at anything that came close to his “good” side.
Enter Sunday’s Gospel: the account of the Transfiguration of Jesus. I listened to this reading in the aftermath of the movie. I thought to myself that the Transfiguration sounded more like the transformation of the disciples so that they could truly see Jesus, more than any change in Jesus. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Who knows what can happen if we allow ourselves to see differently? To be transformed so as to see a transfigured world around us.
Think about it.
