Faith Venture

Seven Things Mindful People Do

1. Practice being curious
2. Forgive themselves
3. Hold their emotions lightly
4. Practice compassion
5. Make peace with imperfection
6. Embrace vulnerability
7. Understand all things come and go

My mom gave me only glimpses of her life as a child. Fifth of six children, her two older brothers and two older sisters were all confident, strong, outgoing, intelligent people. Mom was talented and intelligent, but she had no confidence. She blamed herself for everything.

Just from observation, I believe that of myself and my three brothers, two of us overcame that upbringing and two didn’t. I know that it took me years.

Failure to forgive yourself, especially for imagined wrongs and shortcomings, but also for sins of omission and commission, can easily destroy a life. And the lives of those around you.

As we sit in meditation and prayer daily, we learn to look at ourselves from a different perspective. We can see those things for which we need to make amends–call that person we injured or pay back that debt; we can also see those things for which we need to just let go. Let go of the attachment to the guilt and set ourselves free. We recognize it and then realize that it is all past and all we can to is release and come back to live in just the present.

To forgive the incessant provocations of daily life – to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son – how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night, “Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

C.S. Lewis reminds us of a fundamental spiritual formation practice. The practice of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is core to most, if not all, of the religions I have studied. Yet, practitioners often manage to subvert the practice. They draw circles around favored types of people and deny forgiveness to those outside their circle of favorites.

Maybe you have read about how we should practice forgiveness. But the scope of the problem looks overwhelming.

I’m looking out my front window at a Magnolia bush. Its branches send shoots of new branches seemingly at random. It needs to be pruned. There are so many, the work seems overwhelming. Then I adjust my insight and realize that focusing on just clipping one shoot at a time more quickly than I realize gets the job done.

We cannot forgive the entire world. That’s overwhelming. But we focus first on ourselves, then on our versions of “the bossy mother-in-law, bullying husband, nagging wife, selfish daughter, deceitful son…” One at a time. Who in your life needs to be your first shoot?

How often should I forgive someone?

Peter the apostle in training thought he’d show Jesus that he was learning. He thought most people might say once. Or maybe twice. Peter thought, how about seven times. That should be lots.

But Jesus the sage and master always raised the bar to impossible heights.

Seventy times seven, he replied.

When I lead the Yoga class and I want to do six Sun Salutations to finish warmup, I often lose count.

Do you think I could remember seven times forgiveness?

How about 77 times (some translations) or 490 times (other translations)?!

Some teachers riff off this theme and try to add qualifications and complex psychological theories. Do not do that.

Jesus is describing a lifestyle. A way of living from the heart. And the heart is forgiving at all times.

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but in America newspapers love to dredge up stories of past failures and sins of everyone they write about. If someone gets a new position with local visibility, you’re sure to read about the parking ticket they received 15 years ago. And especially worse misdeeds.

But in conversations, do we like to dwell on what others have done wrong in their past?

Do we forget that we all have done things–great and small–that we shouldn’t have? A stream of images just flashed through my consciousness of things I’m not proud of.

Are we willing to let it rest?

As a church fellowship, are we willing to admit people with a past? After all, that would be all of us.

When do we move on? When do we stop bringing up the past and live in the present moment?

We all need something of the Alcoholics Anonymous foundation–I screwed up, I recognize it, I own it, I’m living a new life one day at a time with the support of others.

We need to be the “others” lending support, not reminding everyone of the past.

It’s all part of our spiritual growth.