Brian’s Reflection: Monday, December 17, 2007



My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!

- John Greenleaf Whittier, poet, born
on this day, 1807, in Haverhill, MA


I can’t talk. I don’t, I think, hold “grudges”. But I am pretty stubborn about cutting off relationships with people that have pushed me beyond the pale. People who demean and belittle other people, especially in a racist or homophobic or sexist way. I once read that one should not surround oneself with people who bring negativity into your life. So, I try not to. And forgiveness, well, I forgive for a selfish reason (as I have so often preached.) The first person that suffers from an unwillingness to forgive is ….. oneself. Like so many other things, it eats away at you. “Pinches” one. Not good.

Whittier is right. We’re all one. In the end, we’ve all got “cold hands folded over a still heart”. When we lie in our graves, all the things that we think distinguish us are moot. Just human beings. Struggling to find our meaning. We all have a “common sorrow”. True, some may not have acknowledged it. But that matters not.

The “bottom line”: if we want to fly on eagles’ wings, rise to the height of being human, it’s best to cultivate the grace to forgive. It allows us to see each other as human beings, it shatters the false barriers we build to distinguish ourselves from one another. We can “pity our race” – we’re all in the same soup. All the same.

Pondering our common mortality sweeps away all pride.

Let’s be kind one to another.

Brian+