To my children
During Lent, I had a confession with the priest. As I left the confessional, I remember that I confessed the same sins during the Christmas season. It appears that I have repeated the same confession over. Instead of trying to understand and empathize the others, I judged them with my own ruler. I never loved them enough.
In criminal justice system, heavy penalty is given when a person repeats the same crimes. In California, there is ‘three strikes’ rule. Once a person commits the crime three times, he gets a real heavy sentencing.
I am thankful that I have been forgiven even though I have been committing the same sins over.
Most people do not commit crime of stealing or beating. Rather we commit a sin of hurting others with our words and actions. Cuts on the body will heal once they are properly treated. You can make up financial losses. A wound on the soul is hard to treat.
There are so many ridiculous and untrue news and videos floating in inter-net. They violate individual’s privacy and damage them. Sometime the victims end up killing themselves.
It is easy to talk about a person who is not there. A person might say “I wonder…” then the other takes that as “Maybe…” Next time he mentions it to another person, it becomes “You know…he did…” It is hard to change such rumors.
To confess the sin and be forgiven, you need to acknowledge your own wrong doings. If you start to justify your wrongs by blaming other’s words or actions, you are heading to a wrong direction.
In Jewish rules, when a person seeks forgiveness and the other person won’t give, it is deemed to be forgiven once the person seeks the forgiveness for three times.
To forgive the other is more important than to seek the forgiveness. Even if the other does not come and seek the forgiveness, it is better for us to forgive them. Thinking about their wrongs will continue to bother and hurt us.
Let’s say a woman continues to think about the wrongs and the bad relationship with her mother-in-law. That woman is allowing the dead mother-in-law continues with her wrongs and hurts her. Let’s say someone borrows your life time saving and never paid it back. You could blame the person and think about the loss forever. It will only continue to hurt you. You are suffering while that person moved on and lives happily.
Life is like a running stream. It moves and passes. Painful events and hard times move along and pass. It only hurts me when I open the album of my painful memories.
I am sure there are few who suffer from painful memories and hard times I caused whether I intended or not. I hope they all forgive me. If they cannot forgive me, I hope they just forget about them.