I've been trying for days to write this one down. Some things are very hard to do. Like finishing the paperwork for my annulment. Divorced nearly 14 years ago, but the annulment I thought I could ignore. I figured if I fell in love again, I would consider it. (The truth is that I have fallen in love again...with God, and giggle if you wish, but you try and it and see what it does to you...you'll giggle for a different reason then) But this annulment is a bit like those sins that are so old, you decide in your heart that God doesn't remember them...I mean the ones you didn't confess way back then because, well, you had such a good reason for doing what you did.
A good reason doesn't take away the guilt. Rationalizing that it doesn't matter anymore doesn't relieve us of the responsibility to 'fess up' to God about it. And as one who is working on dumping my own sins as God reveals them to me, I can tell you it feels great to hand them over and get on with living.
I have a bumper sticker on my freezer in the garage: "The Secret of Life is to Live it." Every time I pull into the garage, I see it. For too long a time, I was nothing more that the walking dead. I was asleep. I was going through the motions.I pretended to live. But "my sin was ever before me...for day and night your hand lay heavy upon me and my strength was dried up..." I always go back to that scripture verse. God really wants me as His own. No joke. And He is determined to "clean me up" so that I will not be afraid in His presence. Yes, I stand before Him sinful and sorrowful...but I also stand before Him with dancing for joy because the dark world I understood as the real thing is just an illusion, trying to drag us down...for the real world is light and joy and living in His Presence. Now I live, because Christ lives in me.
So here is what it is like to give it over to God (for me anyway):
Yesterday morning, before Mass, I did a 'drop open' the Bible for a prayer and it opened to Daniel 3: 51-90. The boys have been put into the furnace because they would not worship the golden statue Nebuchadnezzar set up.
This is a beautiful prayer. It asks the entire creation to "praise and glorify [the Lord] forever." Really quite beautiful. I don't recall reading it before, since I lost my original NJB Bible, I no longer have a history to refer to. I date my Bibles as I read them and comment shortly about how I felt. I write about everything.
It is one way for me to stay grounded. The curse of the only child, or the blessing. No one to talk to about stuff, so I write it down. Or I talk to God.
Oh, how I could write stories about how I talk to God, with God...and God talks with me. Sometimes I feel a bit like Emily Dickinson, who was pretty much of a recluse. Had she been in this century, I'm certain she would be on the computer, writing in the dark to no one in particular.
When I am in the company of women, I always feel challenged. I feel alone, I feel more different than when I am alone. I love these women and as I have gotten older, I have learned to love them better. It has been a long road. I both envy and cherish the closeness they seem to portray with each other as they gather together. I am participant and observer. Still consciously reaching out to them. I look forward to the day when my reaching out will be unconscious.
You see what I tend to remember is "mean girls." Not the early ones of Catholic school, although I always felt they all had the better lives: they had oodles of brothers and sisters and I was an only child. I was a bit jealous. OK I was a lot jealous. And I remember Molly Collins had a brother (or was is a cousin?) who was a priest. She was always very proud of that fact. Holier than the rest of us by association. It was hard for me to deal.
Things just looked better everywhere else. When you are a kid, when I was a kid, I longed to get back to school, where my teachers really cared about me. I suppose I looked pretty lost and lonely, being too smart (I had not learned yet how to play stupid so that I could make friends)and not really having anyone to lean on.
The nuns always said, "Turn the other cheek." So when I was hit by a girl friend, I turned and let her slug me on the other side. My mother tells me my legs were always black and blue. I remember thinking, really thinking, "better for her to hit me than someone else who couldn't take it." What a martyr I was! I just saw other people's anger as a lostness and pain, they didn't care who they hit, just as long as they got to hit something or someone. I could take it. I was strong.
Then, of course, there was the shooting.
I started reviewing my posts to see if I wrote about this one yet. I can't find it. I'm thinking I've written is many times, but always deleted it. But it's part of my journey. And it has never left my mind. So here goes.
You may not want to read beyond here. That's fine. I'm not certain I want to write it either. To walk in the light of the Lord, we have to give it all away. My apologies to the people I love. And if it is elsewhere, then maybe it had to be written again today. I don't know. God's in charge. And the truth is, while this event was tragic for me, I know for a fact that others have endured much greater challenges and done well. John 16:33 says no matter what, God wins. We must believe that with every cell in our bodies.
If this is a repeat, forgive me.
So maybe I was 8 or 9. I think 8. Some memories are hard to find. My dad bought a pellet rifle to shoot the squirrels that were eating his precious pecans. I think Col. Murphey talked him into it. That's a different story. But Dad had the gun, and as much as he may have loved me, he really wanted a son, I think and raised me like one. He decided to teach me how to shoot. And I was very proud of that. I had one lesson. He taught me how to pump it, how to shoot and how to put on the safety. So when the 30 or so Girl Scouts arrived at the house that Saturday morning, and the gun was on the back porch, I couldn't wait to show it to them. Me, who wouldn't even aim at a squirrel, was very excited to know this kind of power.
I recall taking the gun in my hands, keeping it low, and then flipping the safety. Just to make certain that I did it correctly, I pulled the trigger. Then I heard the screams. I shot one of the girls in the thigh. It hit an artery. There was so much blood. (And that is why this story came to my mind, when Bobby was first on the scene of that accident, he said, "There was so much blood")
Our bodies are filled with blood, the stuff that makes all the parts work. It is the connection between everything inside us. It carries in food and takes away waste. It is sacred. No wonder the Jews did not want to drink it. It was the essence of life. That belonged to God alone.
This event is like a news clip for me. I don't have any fluid memory of it, only parts of it. I traumatized not just one little girl, but about 30. I was eight years old. There is no way my brain could even begin to get around what happened. I didn't even know it 'mattered' so much (because no one ever talked with me about it, asked how I felt, told me anything) until I was 33. That was the time when I began to 'wake up.'
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. (That was on the wall at Children's Hospital where I was chaplain)
So I began to make my way through that pain finally. My therapist, who I think had dismissed me as just one more unhappy married woman, became very still when I off-handedly said something like "I can't believe Bob {my ex-husband] told my children about the shooting." (That was an event I never wanted them to know, I was furious with Bob for exposing it) She just got very still and began to listen to me with very different ears. I didn't know I needed healing. I was ignored when it happened
An old friend interrupted my train of thought at that point yesterday, told me her truth and asked for prayer. That was really nice, really sacred to me. And I looked at the time and knew I needed to be at the nursing home for a Mass. Turns out I got there much too early.
But I met Mary in the hall. We had become friends over the year, a little bit. I leaned down to her and she stared at my crucifix around my neck. Her hand reached out and so I knelt on one knee, by her wheelchair. She took the crucifix in her hand and pulled me close and she kissed the crucifix. She looked into my eyes and said so quietly, "It's beautiful." and I said, "Yes it is," and she kissed it again. I felt completely slain by her action. Somehow, we do good for each other when we bend into each other and just hold a hand. I felt emmersed in grace and it brought me down again...and picked me up again.
To return to the story, I didn't know how much I had been hurt by what happened during that Girl Scout meeting. All I could see was that I shot someone by accident, but the gun didn't 'just go off' like people say. I pulled the trigger. I knew that in my heart. It took some counseling to remember that I pulled the trigger to make certain the safety was on. Knowing that helped the pain. But I still shot a little girl. I don't remember her name. The event was so intense, I still don't have all the details. I am certain that when I meet God, He will help me understand things I cannot understand now.
There are many paths to turn on from here, but today, I'll opt for the forgiveness one. I was about 33 when I began to tell this truth, and I was really angry with my ex-husband for telling my daughter about it. She didn't need to know. (But I thought about the Joan of Arcadia episode, when Joan's mother finally tells Joan about being raped...the event had colored their relationship and Joan didn't understand why her mother was being so protective and cautious. She had to tell her daughter so they both could understand and love again) Beth and I have never talked about it. I supposed we should. But not today.
So I'm 'fessing up' to my therapist and I realize I didn't just hurt one little girl, I hurt 30 little girls. Everyone who witnessed what happened was as traumatized as I was. I knew in my heart I needed to pray hard for God to heal their hearts of that tragedy. I didn't dare ask God to help them forgive me yet. That was just too hard still.
So years later, I go through my first union with Christ, I have a vision, I hear distinct messages from God (no, I will not explain yet), things start falling into their places and I begin to very hard for these women to forgive me. Two weeks before I go on my Walk to Emmaus (1997), I see in the paper a huge picture of a woman, sitting on a bench, head bent over. I keep staring at her. It was one of those 'shadow pics' very dramatic. Something about her is important. And then I look at the caption. "Mary Lou Hunt rests from her missionary work in Bosnia." or something like that. Mary Lou Hunt. She was one of my 'Star Trek' gang. I was Kirk, she was McCoy. She was also at my house during the shooting.
I called the Dallas Morning News and told gave them my information and told them to give it to her. She was my childhood friend. The next week, the day before I was to go on the retreat that took my breath away and send me off to seminary, I got a phone call from Mary Lou. As soon as she said hello, I knew from her voice she had forgiven me for what I had done.
Mary Lou was in Bosnia as a missionary. She was supposed to meet a group of people for coffee and was too tired to go. She stayed home. The coffee shop was bombed and many of her friends were killed. From the survivors, she created a wheelchair basketball team that was building up the spirits of the people who witnessed the tragedy. So it made the Dallas paper.
I remember Mary Ann always as pushing her mother's wheelchair. I remember how kind and loving her mother was. I remember how they just "got on" with life and never batted an eye at their troubles. I don't know when Mary Lou's father died. But it was before we were in school together.
I know how long this is, and the story is only half told. I pray that I have been a benefit to someone on their own path.
The only unforgivable sin is the one for which we do not ask for forgiveness.
Love,
Cindy
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