"Forgiveness is for me. Forgiveness sets me free."

I just had an image of someone who, fairly recently, hurt me. I immediately felt a heavy constriction around my heart. I always jump to the worst diagnosis, so I decided that I was having a heart attack. Then I remembered (grace? miracle? good luck?) the words from Deepak Chopra, "Forgiveness is for me. Forgiveness sets me free." I muttered, "I forgive you." to my mental image of the offending party or rather the person I allowed to hurt me, and my physical body released the constriction instantly and even felt better than it had before the heart attack.

I claim no medical knowledge, but I had at least a metaphorical heart attack, and I was cured. At least for a moment. This kind of wisdom is one of the million things I think we should teach children. But to do that we would have to remember it ourselves. These lessons didn't come through to me in Catechism class. I remember the example of Christ on the cross saying "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." but that was Christ! I understood the word 'parable' but I didn't get it. Maybe we should have done some role playing or something. I have always suspected that I am sometimes a bit 'slow'.

My friend Susan Dodge said it well the other day. We were discussing how sick I had gotten with my parasites. I almost died. She reminded me that eight months before the great Dr. Blanco saved my life with his four little pills, (the four right pills at last!) I had told her that I thought I had cancer because I was loosing so much weight. She said, "Get to a doctor." I did not go. Her recent remark was something like, "It always amazes me how stupid really smart people can be sometimes." I appreciate that, Susan. It may be the sentence that saves my life next time, because sometimes really stupid smart people need to be hammered over the head for wonderful wisdom to get through.

My friend John Gardner used to say, "When God wants to talk to you, she first whispers, then shouts, then hits you over the head with a sledge hammer." So today with the forgiveness heart attack, I caught the whisper. Next time I am too scared or skeptical to go to a doctor, maybe I will hear God whisper through Susan's words. Amen.