I read recently that forgiveness is the "willingness to give up yearning for a better past."
So many terms in there cry out to me to be unpacked, all English-major-101 style. "willingness." "give." "yearning." "better." "past."
And yet...I also know that my academic, convoluted, verbose manner of wanting to break down and analyze these words has it own roots---roots in a time and a place where forgiveness was not a part of my lexicon, nor of anyone else I knew.
In grad school, English majors learn about "loaded" terms, about "problematic" phrasing or word usage, and about "troubling" the norms. We learn to do these things, to engage with them and fight with them, to expound upon them for pages at a time, and to bury them under miles of contextualizing foot and end notes...all, so we think, for the sake of "clarity."
Meaning-making. That was, in many ways, the goal. Clear, true, thoughtful, new thoughts, committed to the page.
I never quite got that far in school. My work was an accurate reflection of my mind--a jumbled mess of ideas and deeply reverent thoughts on poetic language and the meanings behind words and their sentimental and historical moments...which is to say, it made sense to ME.
But writing is often meant for an audience greater than 1.
My writing never really eclipsed audiences greater than members of my seminar groups, and a few devoted fellow-soldiers in the trenches of thesis-writing hell themselves.
And for that...and for so many other things....I want to stop yearning to have done it better.
I want to be willing to give up hoping for a better past, one I did not live.
I desire the forgiveness of so many people in the world, not the least of which is myself.
So many terms in there cry out to me to be unpacked, all English-major-101 style. "willingness." "give." "yearning." "better." "past."
And yet...I also know that my academic, convoluted, verbose manner of wanting to break down and analyze these words has it own roots---roots in a time and a place where forgiveness was not a part of my lexicon, nor of anyone else I knew.
In grad school, English majors learn about "loaded" terms, about "problematic" phrasing or word usage, and about "troubling" the norms. We learn to do these things, to engage with them and fight with them, to expound upon them for pages at a time, and to bury them under miles of contextualizing foot and end notes...all, so we think, for the sake of "clarity."
Meaning-making. That was, in many ways, the goal. Clear, true, thoughtful, new thoughts, committed to the page.
I never quite got that far in school. My work was an accurate reflection of my mind--a jumbled mess of ideas and deeply reverent thoughts on poetic language and the meanings behind words and their sentimental and historical moments...which is to say, it made sense to ME.
But writing is often meant for an audience greater than 1.
My writing never really eclipsed audiences greater than members of my seminar groups, and a few devoted fellow-soldiers in the trenches of thesis-writing hell themselves.
And for that...and for so many other things....I want to stop yearning to have done it better.
I want to be willing to give up hoping for a better past, one I did not live.
I desire the forgiveness of so many people in the world, not the least of which is myself.
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