I OUGHT TO HAVE KNOWN

[Pages:2]Week Five

FO U R T H S U N DAY I N L E N T

I OUGHT TO HAVE KNOWN

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:1011

My back's turned to Father. Just one week earlier I'd saved enough energy--I was sure I had--for this visit home to Barbados to say my final fare-thee-well to him. Embarking in Toronto, I knew I wanted to say to Father as my parting gift, "Peace be upon you." Disembarking in Barbados, that had all changed. My soul grieved because, ever since that Ash Wednesday 31 years prior, I'd worked assiduously to hate the man who sired me. And though I'd known that I couldn't despise Father anymore and that there wasn't a molecule left in my body in which to stash anymore hatred for him, I couldn't let go. It would've been cowardly to give in, despite my training, my clinical supervision, and my years of professional life. I ought to have known it could not be a tidy farewell. My back still turned to Father, I heard his inchoate mumblings. He whimpered. I spun around and glared at him. "You'll never tug at my heart. Never. I'll never, ever, ever forgive you." My entire being filled now with rage. "Do you know that this body IS my gallows?" I pounded my chest, "And if it was so difficult for you to accept me, can any bone in that driedout piece of flesh of yours conceive how difficult it was for me to accept myself?" I hoisted my knapsack onto my back. "Father," I called, my body hurtling over the guardrails, "Father." I cupped his face in both my hands. I looked at Father and knew in that moment that I couldn't forgive him. I leaned in and whispered into his ears that which shan't be disclosed--my language and my imagination, firing on all cylinders.

62 | Lesser Evils

I Ought to Have Known

Torrents of grief now, though not for Father. O, the inexhaustible weariness of it all. "Hatred fatigues," opines Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher. We will not be punished for our anger, we will be punished by our anger, I read that the Buddha said. Thirty suns have gone down and still I genuflect before this consuming rage and anger. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me." Ponder A consuming rage drives me and exhausts me. What consumes, drives, and exhausts you? Is revenge your true desire? Pray At my lowest, I accept your invitation to come, for I am weary and burdened. I need rest. I will take your yoke and learn from you, for my wisdom is spent. You are gentle and humble in heart; I know that I will find rest for my soul in you. I come to Jesus; accept me, I pray. Amen. Practise Name and practise that which gives life, heals spirit, and is balm to your woundedness.

Basil Coward

Daily Reflections on Seeking Wisdom | 63

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