Letting Go of Outrage

Someone on an email list wrote:
> I was struck by the fact that Judas "said this not because he cared about the poor, >but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse." (v6). It seems he was after >the money for himself.
> Nasty. And did Jesus know this was what he was up to?

Not only Jesus, apparently.


> How hard it is for me to be with people who have broken my trust in them, lied and >betrayed me - and yet they are my family in God. It's still hard but I have to try. >I'm going to need a big helping of Grace.
>

Yes, it is quite hard. I think for me the hardest part is letting go
of the sense that I have a right to my outrage. Once I accept that my
outrage is equally unacceptable to God, then I begin to do better.

Something the Rule of St. Benedict stresses over and over... God
wants us to be concerned with our own behavior and not that of the
other person's. So no matter what wrong another person has done us,
perceived or real, God expects me to do the appropriate thing and not
withhold it on the basis that the other guy is more wrong. There is no
"more wrong" in God's eyes, there is only wrong. Despite what our
emotions and possibly our governments will tell us, there is no longer
"an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth".

Regardless of whether the other person asks to be forgiven, it is my
responsibility to forgive. Jesus says to forgive 70 X 70. He doesn't
say that we wait to forgive until we are asked for it. Waiting until
we are asked only allows more room for our own outrage to grow.
Forgiving before we are asked is a gesture of humility, a
demonstration to God that we freely choose to let go of our anger
because that pleases Him. It's a recognition that when we bear a
grudge, it damages our relationship with God.

God wants us to be concerned about our individual relationship with
Him and not with someone else's relationship with Him. And waiting
for the other guy to ask for our forgiveness is, in fact, being
concerned with that person's relationship with God. We must trust God
to bring that person to a sense of repentance and not try to help the
Holy Spirit along.

I was horrified recently to see a person write a pack of lies to an
email list. I happen to be in a position to know. My first reaction
was to write something putting that person in their place and another
was to officiously write to the list owner and inform of this
atrocity. My third reaction was to do a reality check with someone
else aslo in a position to know who affirmed that yes, a pack of lies it
was. This person went further, advising me against any of the actions
I had thought of. At first all I could think of is how could we allow
this person to continue in this deception when it was brought home to
me that this person is in a place where they are unable to see they
are deceiving. That had a powerfull effect upon me because I've been there,
done that, sent the postcard, bought the tee shirt, posed for the
poster back in the day when my depression was uncontrollable and
seemingly, according to the psychiatrists, uncontrollable. The Holy
Spirit brought light into that darkness and the Holy Spirit will
pierce the darkness of this other person too and my responsibility is
to pray and keep my nose out of other people's business and to mind my own.


It is a sad realization I've come to after writing this. I know so
much better than I behave. May the Lord help me integrate knowledge with my heart.