I am uncomfortable with your sponsor's insistence that you stick with resentment as a starting point. Resentment isn't one of my big weaknesses, either, so this resonates with me. You're liable not to uncover buried resentments, but to manufacture them, looking so hard for them.
I don't know, maybe I'm wrong ...
But yeah, I think you can certainly feel nothing at all about your biological father. You didn't even know he existed until you were 64. Why should you feel anything about him? It is your mother he wronged, and if she forgives, why should you resent? On the contrary, I think you were blessed by discovering and loving your mother and M, and even by what you learned about your father: that he wasn't a complete monster, although he did something very bad and did not overtly repent of it. If he never treated another woman like that, in my eyes it's substantial repentance. Amends would have been nice, but evidently your mother did not require it. Nothing here for you to resent.
Hi Regina. It is so good to hear from you. I much regret that i have been so distant from my friends during the past six months.
I appreciate your comments; they are useful and comforting.
Yes, you could be wrong, but more likely you are right.
I am already seeing some results from starting the 4th Step "Bill's way." I have plenty of time and i will try other approaches concurrently or consecutively.
There's no evidence he didn't make amends; and i would find it evidence from the serenity with which you were contacted, told your history, and offered an introduction your birth father that amends may have been made.
If we were involved in a Quaker Clearness Committee, i would listen to your story, and your self questions, and i would ask, "Do you resent or regret not contacting your birth mother earlier?"
I am very interested in the concept of "Clearness" which i intend to explore.
My answer to your question would have been yes. I do wish that i would have contacted my mother much earlier. I was just getting to know her when she began to slip into dementia. I wanted more time. But "regret" is, perhaps, too strong a word. I am starting to learn from the First Peoples of the U.S.Southwest, from Al-Anon and from all the wisdom traditions that all of our circumstances are gifts from the Divine and are exactly the way they are supposed to be.
Quakers find discernment an important part of spiritual practice and clarity the state when discernment is complete. The most formal clearness committees are on membership and being married under the care of the meeting, where both the community and the individual(s) need clarity about the commitments. When someone carries a concern or is in distress, a clearness committee can be formed to support them in their discernment.
I am somewhat acquainted with Parker Palmer; his To Know As One is Known has guided me through at least the past 30 years as a teacher and human being.
I think the 4th step is al anon's version of discernment.
Total acceptance would make resentment (or any other negative emotion) impossible. But until i have achieved that, it is important to know what and who i appear to be and how i came to be that way.
I think it is possible to carry a sort of bubble of strangeness, around a past experience. Sometimes for years or decades and then there is clearness and one knows how one feels. Sometimes, I suspect, one carries the bubble forever.
Thank you for these stories of your journey, sir. I look forward to your working through the clarity of the step you're embarking upon, and appreciate your sharing it so openly. Namaste.
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I don't know, maybe I'm wrong ...
But yeah, I think you can certainly feel nothing at all about your biological father. You didn't even know he existed until you were 64. Why should you feel anything about him? It is your mother he wronged, and if she forgives, why should you resent? On the contrary, I think you were blessed by discovering and loving your mother and M, and even by what you learned about your father: that he wasn't a complete monster, although he did something very bad and did not overtly repent of it. If he never treated another woman like that, in my eyes it's substantial repentance. Amends would have been nice, but evidently your mother did not require it. Nothing here for you to resent.
Love
R
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I appreciate your comments; they are useful and comforting.
Yes, you could be wrong, but more likely you are right.
I am already seeing some results from starting the 4th Step "Bill's way." I have plenty of time and i will try other approaches concurrently or consecutively.
Reply
If we were involved in a Quaker Clearness Committee, i would listen to your story, and your self questions, and i would ask, "Do you resent or regret not contacting your birth mother earlier?"
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I am very interested in the concept of "Clearness" which i intend to explore.
My answer to your question would have been yes. I do wish that i would have contacted my mother much earlier. I was just getting to know her when she began to slip into dementia. I wanted more time. But "regret" is, perhaps, too strong a word. I am starting to learn from the First Peoples of the U.S.Southwest, from Al-Anon and from all the wisdom traditions that all of our circumstances are gifts from the Divine and are exactly the way they are supposed to be.
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Parker Palmer is taking Quaker practice out to the world through his work. It seems he uses clearness committees, too: http://www.couragerenewal.org/clearnesscommittee/ #6 is about the questions.
How does the wisdom you are learning about circumstances being exactly the way they should be interact with this process of examining resentments?
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I am somewhat acquainted with Parker Palmer; his To Know As One is Known has guided me through at least the past 30 years as a teacher and human being.
I think the 4th step is al anon's version of discernment.
Total acceptance would make resentment (or any other negative emotion) impossible. But until i have achieved that, it is important to know what and who i appear to be and how i came to be that way.
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Well then, i hope it is a valuable experience for both of us.
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