[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Rock into River

Resentment stains the soul something dreadful; I knew I had a case of 
it, a long-standing case that distressed me and everyone who cared 
about me, and the time had come to DO something about it.

So I picked up a stone, with intent -- not to throw it through 
someone's window, but to put it to good use. I have a number of 
stones around the house, and I plan to collect some more, just in 
case. I put the stone in my pocket and headed downtown.

I live almost within spitting distance of a sweet-natured river, the 
Gananoque, which tumbles into one of the world's great rivers, the 
St. Lawrence. There is a footbridge across the Gananoque that takes 
my neighbourhood downtown over a pretty tumble of water in which 
three swans are currently hoofing it.

On the bridge I stopped and took the stone out of my pocket and 
turned it over and over in my hands, wrapping it around with 
intention, the way I might wrap it around in a thin strip of paper 
with words printed on it.

I wrapped the stone with my resentment, my desire for justice (or was 
it revenge?), my deep frustration and sense of unfairness that cannot 
now be resolved. The party of the second part has to be handed over 
to God's justice, not mine, which is just as well as my justice is 
not disinterested or kind or fair or merciful.

I knew that the stone was innocent, and I asked its forgiveness for 
making it my scapegoat. I asked the river's forgiveness for loading 
this crap into its innocent waters, just as people upstream load it 
with gunk that makes an unhealthy foam just above where the swans 
swim. (That worries me a lot.)

And then, almost reluctantly, I dropped the stone in the water. It's 
really, really hard to let go of a solid, justified, well-documented, 
extremely important grievance, especially when it has 
spiritual/theological aspects that really do need to be kicked five 
ways from Sunday.

But I can't talk like a Christian unless I walk like a Christian, and 
that means fore-giving -- giving up. Abandoning a perfectly ripe, 
well-rounded, richly justified resentment is no fun. Gotta do it, though.

It's a question of habit. Resentment is often legitimate anger that's 
settled in, like a wine stain on the tablecloth, and has made itself 
at home and has no intention of moving on any time soon. Initially it 
make us feel better about ourselves at the cost of diminishing 
someone else. But in fact -- and I'd known this and it bothered me 
constantly, the way the scum near the swan's river spot bothers me -- 
resentment diminishes me, not the person at whom I direct it.

But resentment also reminds me that I'm human, and that I haven't 
handled anger well at the past; I have this burden because I took it 
on out of sheer force of habit. Another pattern to challenge and break.

So I'll go on taking smooth stones and wrapping them around with 
things I want to get rid of, and dropping the stones in the water. 
Maybe I'll even give a few of them a good over-arm heave. And I will 
try to fill the empty spaces that the things leave behind them with 
prayer. And love. Even love.


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A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in 
no other way. -- Mark Twain