The Swami

Last weekend Mum and Matt were not getting along at all. Every time they were together for more than five minutes they started grumbley-grooing at one another. After the umpteenth shouting match Sunday evening I copped an attitude which sent me into helpless fits of the giggles.

I have been talking with both of them for six years about finding less… ugly ways to deal with their frustration. Thus far they haven’t listened much. That is why I copped the following attitude.

Kiss my enlightened...

Perhaps a little more explanation is in order. Thirty years ago, before The SImpsons, Matt Groening had a comic strip entitled “Life In Hell” that my brothers and I adored. One of our favourites was when the central character, Binky the Bunny copped an attitude. He swirled his ears into a turban and pronounced, “I am the Swami Binkynandu, kiss my enlightened ass.”

Of course Jim, Matt, and I adored this. We went so far as to cut the original comic out of the New Times Weekly and save it. This was one of many, as well as some of ‘Ernie Pook’s Comeek’. So when I copped my attitude last week it was Binky the Bunny who inspred me to illustrate my mood.

Forgiveness

“Forgiveness is the finding again of a lost possession.” ~Friedrich Von Schiller

I am in the midst of trying to figure out my own forgiveness. I have chosen to forgive my husband for infidelities and deceptions. And while I have taken the step of forgiveness, it is challenging to lead with my heart out of love. I find myself all day long, making a conscious effort to keep my heart open, and not close it off to things that I find painful or agonizing. I know I need to allow these negative things to move through me instead of holding on to them and having them get stuck in the stacks of other issues I have tucked away in the corners. (I’ve been cleaning those corners out a lot lately!) But doing that takes an underlying motivation that can only be driven by the genuine love I know my husband and I have for each other. What we have discovered along our journey together thus far, is that we are both survivors of, and adults living with, abandonment issues. It is these issues that dig up something emotional deep inside of us, tightening our stomachs and making our hearts ache, that cause us to sometimes do or say things that we know are hurting those that we love. But we do them anyway. I am guilty of this myself. I have been in my husband’s shoes; and he has been in mine. We fight our best fight to maintain a strong foundation. We face the same childhood pains; from different perspectives; but it is through those wounds that we nurture and love one another with both sensitivity and strength. We strive to understand each other’s stories and have written so many of our own together over the past twelve years. And we have compassion for one another.

There are times when I feel it would be so much easier to obsess over how I’ve been hurt, and why–and ‘to make things right”. It is during those times that I find myself opening my heart and urging my fears to just pass on through. That fearful energy will cycle its course and leave room for the more pure and brilliant energy that I am striving to maintain in my marriage.

Now, I suppose I must ask you to forgive me for putting my personal issues out there; but there is something inside of me that tells me I need to expose myself emotionally and spiritually. When the words find their way to the page, I am urged to share them. I hope your hearts are feeling open when there are opportunities for forgiveness. Love is a powerful, painful and beautiful thing.