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Delinquently Damned
by Jeff Wozer
Liv Fun: Vol 1 – Issue 3
I just Googled “how to forgive” and received 81,100,000 results. To put this into perspective, a “Rolling Stones” search only produced 31,700,000 results.
I used the Rolling Stones for comparison, because I cannot forgive them for not performing a 50th anniversary tour this year. Jerks.
I’ll eventually warm back up to Mick and the gang. When it comes to others, I’m not the grudge-holding type, accepting author Norman Cousins’ observation that “life is an adventure in forgiveness.”
This is not to imply, however, that I share the mental processes of a golden retriever, a species incapable of holding a grudge due to ADD — Anger Deficit Disorder. For instance, since 1989 I have not purchased a single gallon of gas from any service station bearing Exxon’s name due to the Valdez oil spill. Nor have I returned to Mount Rushmore after the crushing disappointment of learning it was man-made.
I do, though, have self-forgiveness issues, unable to unburden myself of unwise choices. My mind, for whatever reason, is locked in playback mode, constantly mulling things I said and did to hurt others, making me a walking monument to speaker Bob Mandel’s contention that “guilt is the mafia of the mind.”
Until recently I never gave much thought to my inability to forgive myself. I always attributed it to Catholic guilt, a resigned penance for terrorizing St. Amelia parishioners at communion in the mid-1970s. Back then altar boys accompanied the priests to the communion line, holding a paten, a gold-colored dish about the size of a saucer, underneath each parishioner’s chin as a safety measure against a dropped communion host. Realizing the paten was metal, I’d rub my feet on the carpeting to build static electricity. As unsuspecting parishioners opened their mouths to receive the Holy Eucharist, the Catholic Church’s most hallowed sacrament, I’d brush the paten against their chins and zap them.
Liv Fun
by Leisure Care
Autumn 2012
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A Mother’s Story?
by Carlene Cross
It has been more than three years since the death of my son. I have recovered from the shock, the months when disbelief muddled reality, when nightmares of his voice calling “Mom” drew me out of sweat-drenched sheets.
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Delinquently Damned
by Jeff WozerI just Googled “how to forgive” and received 81,100,000 results. To put this into perspective, a “Rolling Stones” search only produced 31,700,000 results. I used the Rolling Stones for comparison, because I cannot forgive them for not performing a 50th anniversary tour this year. Jerks.
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No Regrets, No Wisdom
by Skye Moody
Mabel is yakking my ear off, spinning her life story in a nutshell the size of New Jersey. She pauses to pontificate, “I regret nothing.” I’ve got plenty of regrets, and keep them to myself, but my brain starts ticking them off, the latest being my regret at coming out to greet the new neighbor over the back fence.
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