February 17, 2008 – Two days without a camera, and I am trying to learn to be less impulsive and more patient, so I’m fine. Lenore, above, spent an hour throwing up all over the house after she ate some revolting thing on our walk this morning. An incredible mess, worth a whole can of Odor Off. It’s a good thing she’s sweet and beautiful. Need more of that odor stuff. This afternoon Izzy and I make some hospice visits, and I will post about that, and also about his sucking up on Friday to the County Health Department employees who are considering giving him an award.

  Forgiveness

  Several times a year, I head off to a nearby Church for Sunday morning services. I am a religiously confused person, I guess. I was raised a Jew, converted to Quakerism as a teenager, moved away from that adirable faith, and now I wear a cross given me by a dear and departed friend. I love the energy, community and health I often feel at Church services, where I am always, though a stranger, welcome and made to feel comfortable.
  This morning I went to the Argyle United Presbyterian Church not too far from the farm, and it was delightful. My friend Becky worships there and teaches Sunday school. Her faith is always a beautiful thing for me to see, and I hope one day to earn and deserve it. Izzy came but stayed in the car – let’s not push it, I told him.
  Pastor Stephen McLean presided over a comfortable, loving and interestingly interactive service that included video screens for hymn-singing and praying, a children’s sermon about “stuff”, a play about accepting the Cross, and reports and comments from worshippers out doing good in Texas, China and nearby. A bus brought patients from a nearby nursing home and Pastor McLean talked quite movingly about the sacrifices many people make for their faith. I especially love the singing and clapping, and the comfortable and safe feeling I get at services like that.
  Why did I go? I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately, because it’s a difficult thing to achieve, and one of the most important. I mostly need to forgive me, I thought, and while I was at it, anyone else in my life that I am angry at. In the past few years or so I’ve come to see that I do carry anger inside of me, and too much, and it goes a long way back and is buried quite deeply. The animals help me. Getting angry at a goat is pointless, and you don’t dare get angry at a 3,000 lb Swiss Steer.
  You cannot herd sheep, train or live well with a dog if you don’t learn to curb your anger, and while I have to work at it, I am getting there. Lenore and Rose and Izzy are testaments to the progress I am making, and want to continue to make.
  It isn’t that there is any one person I am thinking of forgiving, rather, a way of looking at the world I want to evolve towards. Anger, grudges, hurts, are corrosive, anti-spiritual, counter-productive. They are useless, and accomplish little other than chewing up our insides, corroding our souls.
  I also have come to believe that if you carry anger, much of it comes from you and if you want to forgive other people, you start by forgiving yourself. This doesn’t get you off the hook for the dumb and hurtful things you do, rather embraces and recognizes the notion that we are mostly doing the best when can, and when we stumble and fall, which most of us will do, we get up, dust ourselves off and try to learn what we have to learn and do better. It’s really about all you can do. It’s a good way to look at me, and a good way to think about others.
  Blame, like guilt, are the huma emotions I like least and don’t really understand. A good friend told me recently. “be gentle with yourself.” And so, it follows, with others.
  Growing up is an awesome responsibility, and I am taking my time. You are supposed to have learned something about patience, wisdom, humor and generousity, and surely, about human nature. So at Church, I prayed for the people I know who are struggling with various difficult things, from the Hospice patients I see to illness to heartbreak to death, who are broken in various ways, and then I prayed for me. The church program quoted from Christ in Mark 8: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will save it.”
  I prayed for me to forgive myself for the wrong and hurtful things I’ve done in my life,  and move forward. And ditto for everybody else. Going to Church is great for that, and I was glad I went. Truly, I felt lighter.