Thursday, May 3, 2012

THE APOLOGY
"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."
-Maria Robinson

A dark moment, somewhere in the past.  Whatever happened, at the time, frankly it was not the "better" nature of yourself....
Is there a moment somewhere in your past in which you would like to apologize for your behavior, your actions?
Tom Hallman Jr. of the Oregonian newspaper (Pulitzer Prize-winning staff writer) had a story in the Sunday Oregonian that caught my attention.
It's striking to read the story of a person's search for an individual in their past, and their desire to reach out to the person with an apology.  Their actions from the past haunt them over the years, rattling like voices behind a mirror.
If you can read Hallman's story, and not feel something familiar stir in your bones - then you are one cold, old fish.
Let's face it, we would all benefit on so many levels to rewind the tape of our lives to specific moments, places in time in which our behavior towards another human was, well, to be nice about it, less than stellar.  And to be blunt, a cluster F_ _ _ of a bad mark on your character.  But even small transgressions in our past can wear on us, eating away at our subconscious...
OBP's morning talk show, Think Out Loud, Allison Frost interviews Hallman, his intent, the resonance it had/has on readers. Comments, and interviews with guests who shared their own stories of apology & forgiveness can cause even the saints amongst  us to squirm.  Frost shares her own story about her parents, and the inability of one of them to "bury the hatchet".
Is apology hardwired into us?  Afterall, we are humans with free will - so what possesses us to mend old fences?  What is the drive behind it?
How do you forgive yourself?
Who would you apologize to if you had the chance?
My own life has its share of transgressions and injury to those close to me - It's a part of the story of my life.  Your's too, right?  Laying to rest the demons it can stir in us, and making peace (finding peace) includes some form of apology...even if one cannot "rewind and go back"--"recover what was said" "retrieve a stone that's been thrown"...
....there is hope.  "....start today and make a new ending" 


 

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