Note: I'm still trying to figure out how this blogging works. If you have signed up for news on my website, have no fear, at some point I will figure out how to get that started but it hasn't happened yet. I do hope in the meantime you'll share these posts if they touch a chord — or even if they don't — I am open to a discussion. I'm exploring some sensitive subjects and I know not everyone feels the same way I do. Thanks for any comments or likes. It's nice to know someone is reading what I have to say.
Molly
Fire can be cleansing, burning away anger and pain, but sometimes it can also scorch your soul if you let the flames eat away at you.
“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”
-Nelson Mandela
This week I’ve been thinking about fairness and justice. It’s not a new thought. Since Pete’s death more than seven years ago, I’ve struggled with those concepts. I felt betrayed by the injustice of what happened to him and to the man who threw the rock that killed him. We had been terribly wronged, and it seemed that there was no redress. The county attorney declined to press charges, and the man who took Pete’s life was silent. To me it felt as if he’d walked away unscathed.
I’m not really concerned about whether that feeling is accurate. People told me they thought Luke Rodolph suffered, but I did not see any sign of his suffering and so did not believe he’d paid anything for taking my husband’s life. Or at least not enough to come close to addressing the wrong of what he’d done. Whether my conclusion was true didn’t really matter; it was the way I felt.
That sense of injustice left me physically agitated. I used exercise to exorcise my demons. I moved hard, fast, constantly, sweating out the nervous energy that seethed in my mind, my stomach. Eventually that movement helped. Eventually time helped. The anger is diminished. I've learned to seek solace in beauty. If I blow on the embers of my anger I can stir it up, but the flame no longer licks at my heart every day.
But recent events threaten to bring the fire back to life. Two different things took place in the past month that triggered the same sweaty palms, the same tightness in my chest, the same restless energy that sends me pacing. In both cases, someone wronged an individual I cared deeply about. In both cases, I can point a finger at the person who was responsible for the pain. It’s not like those situations where someone says something nasty that shouldn’t get to you but does. These situations involved life and death, job and no job. And both were terribly unfair. Both left the victims voiceless and grieving.
Does having a culprit change the way you cope with these feelings? I think it does in some way. I think the fact that someone has injured me — or someone I love — deeply and then walked away is really hard to let go of. At least for me. Unlike some people, I do not seem to have a very forgiving nature.
I’ve studied revenge. Looked at its historical power on the human race and concluded that we are programmed to strike back when we are hurt. We gave up that right when we adopted the rule of law and order. I get that. We can’t all go around killing people who have wronged us. But in giving up the right to seek vengeance, many of us are left fighting to suppress our innate desire for justice when someone does us wrong.
I wanted to scream at Luke Rodolph. To make him hear and see my pain. But I could not. He was nowhere to be found. With my friend’s job situation, I wanted to write a letter to the company’s owner, demanding that she look at both sides of the situation and not make my loved one the scapegoat.
Would it help me to be heard? Would it help if Luke Rodolph had been charged, tried and convicted for killing my husband? Would it help if I could send the ranting letter to my friend’s boss? I think so. I think the power of the truth and reconciliation work that has taken place in South Africa supports this belief. It’s not like being heard makes everything better or changes the past, but it does give you an outlet for those feelings that keep you awake at night, that make you tense, anxious and unable to rest. That ultimately can make you ill.
But I am not going to get that outlet. And I don’t think my friend will either. We’re left trying to figure out how to move forward. I recognize that by focusing my anger on one person, I actually give him power over me. I allow him to continue to damage my life. I need to release my anger not because Luke Rodolph deserved my forgiveness, but because I want to live my life without its weight. My friend needs to release his anger not because his supervisor merits compassion, but because the stress is making him anxious, depressed and unable to enjoy his life.
A group of my women friends gathered together last week to engage in a burning ceremony. We wrote down the things we wanted to let go of on a piece of paper, lit them on fire and watched as the glowing embers rose up on the air current, then blackened and fell down to the floor. The symbolism of the act moved me. I liked the idea of burning up the anger that burned inside me. I liked watching the flame flare up, then flicker and fade, until the ashes fell, impotent, harmless and dead onto my hand. I want my anger to do the same thing.
But it’s not simple. These new injustices triggered the same physical response in me that I’ve fought against for years. Again I feel like an animal in a trap, wounded and lashing out in fear and rage. It’s hard to control those emotions. And yet, I must. We must. Because letting them take over and rule us in the end gives even more power to those who’ve done us wrong.
Life is not fair. I shouldn’t expect it to be. But I do and so I’m hurt when I feel wronged. I doubt that is going to change. But what can change is what I do with that hurt. For now, I write, I exercise, and I try to breath deeply and let the flames die out.