2018-09-09 Cincinnati
Pater Noster – Capitulum Quintum
Continued from 2018-09-08
As we forgive those who trespass against us:
This part of the Lord’s Prayer may seem altruistic – “Look, Mom, I’m forgiving!” If so, great.
Its more immediate and palpable effect is freeing me of my grudges, resentments, and annoyances. Wiser folk than I have figured out that forgiveness benefits the forgiver as much as the forgiven.
And awestruck am I every time I think of Shakespeare’s words with my 2nd most favorite[3] of zir poems:
The Merchant of Venice [words in bold (below) represent the bipartite bounty of forgiveness]
Act 4, Scene 1, Portia pleads to Shylock
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown,
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
Which, if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there.
But this part of my prayer is (embarrassingly) shorter than my list of self-perpetuated trespasses.
***
…to be continued…
[1] “Greatest” in both its major senses:
“Greatest” – the component of the Lord’s Prayer on which I spend the most amount of time.
“Greatest” – most “wonderful,” “awesome,” “good.”
[2] Despite not believing in a tangible/ describable/ real Divine Being that “hears” me (much less one that “obeys” me, answering my prayers as I’ve articulated them), I do talk to “God” this way – as though there is a Being that’s listening and caring and acting. As I’ve matured, I recognize that this part of my praying is a prelude to my listening. Whoever/ whatever “God” is, she/he/it/they/the blob does communicate with me.
[3] Lest you forget, my favorite Shakespeare poem is zir Sonnet 116: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds”
Let us [sic] not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
Lawson recited this to me, first on our wedding day, and many times thereafter. We aspire to this definition of love.
VicWulsin 