Thursday inspiration - atonement
"Howbeit on the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; there shall be a holy convocation unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls; and ye shall bring an offering made by fire unto the LORD"
-Leviticus 23:27
Today is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement in Jewish religion. While not Jewish myself, I think it as good a time as any for a moment of reflection, of regret, and of strengthened resolve.
There are many things in the past year or so that I wish now had gone differently. In most cases, I believe the results, no matter how painful, were unavoidable. I will make no apologies for how I feel, nor for the circumstances in which I live. These things simply are, and to wail and gnash my teeth against them is to ignore those things that I could have changed, but didn't.
Of my regrets, the first to mind is a hypocrisy in which I wanted open communications, but still hid my own feelings. Generally, I don't talk about personal issues with other people. I don't lie, but I misdirect and obscure. Sometimes it is a game to see how much I can gather and how little I can reveal. Sometimes it is just habit. Always it is my nature. But in this particular case, it was an unspoken covenant, a deep trust, to give voice to words normally buried. And in this case, I chose to stay quiet, I chose a shameful path.
At the time, I had thought it was the right choice.
It is a conundrum at times, to love someone, to want them always happy, and still to want what makes them strongest. Growth can be a hard path, adversity painful as it chips away the soft excesses. If you love someone, how can you risk their future with false assurances? Yet how can you call it love if your words crush their spirit? That is what I told myself at the time, and I remained silent as I waited for a better answer to appear, an answer that never came.
I have since realized that I was wrong, that the conflict wasn't between loving someone and wanting what was best for them. To want what is best for someone IS to love them. The conflict was between loving someone and wanting them to love me back. For too long I let the second interfere with the first, and I regret that they suffered for my weakness.
I cannot say with certainty that acknowledging this mistake will change anything. I cannot in good faith promise that I will be stronger in the future. I can only, every evening, ask myself if I've kept that strength for one more day.
Keep the faith,
LateNightCoder
-Leviticus 23:27
Today is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement in Jewish religion. While not Jewish myself, I think it as good a time as any for a moment of reflection, of regret, and of strengthened resolve.
There are many things in the past year or so that I wish now had gone differently. In most cases, I believe the results, no matter how painful, were unavoidable. I will make no apologies for how I feel, nor for the circumstances in which I live. These things simply are, and to wail and gnash my teeth against them is to ignore those things that I could have changed, but didn't.
Of my regrets, the first to mind is a hypocrisy in which I wanted open communications, but still hid my own feelings. Generally, I don't talk about personal issues with other people. I don't lie, but I misdirect and obscure. Sometimes it is a game to see how much I can gather and how little I can reveal. Sometimes it is just habit. Always it is my nature. But in this particular case, it was an unspoken covenant, a deep trust, to give voice to words normally buried. And in this case, I chose to stay quiet, I chose a shameful path.
At the time, I had thought it was the right choice.
It is a conundrum at times, to love someone, to want them always happy, and still to want what makes them strongest. Growth can be a hard path, adversity painful as it chips away the soft excesses. If you love someone, how can you risk their future with false assurances? Yet how can you call it love if your words crush their spirit? That is what I told myself at the time, and I remained silent as I waited for a better answer to appear, an answer that never came.
I have since realized that I was wrong, that the conflict wasn't between loving someone and wanting what was best for them. To want what is best for someone IS to love them. The conflict was between loving someone and wanting them to love me back. For too long I let the second interfere with the first, and I regret that they suffered for my weakness.
I cannot say with certainty that acknowledging this mistake will change anything. I cannot in good faith promise that I will be stronger in the future. I can only, every evening, ask myself if I've kept that strength for one more day.
Keep the faith,
LateNightCoder