To Forgive is Wisdom; To Forget is Genius

Nadya's hollyhocks in a Russian village near the Volga.

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The Telling that Changes Everything XIII.

March 18, 2012

People need our clarity, our joy, how 

we do a stake-out to catch the errant heart

when it suddenly opens wide.

–The Telling That Changes Everything IV.

To flourish, we allow the mind to empty, 

the feelings to experience hunger.  Then 

the words and the love rush in.

–The Telling That Changes Everything V.

Learn and learn.  Learn humility again.

You can’t always get what you want.

You want to save people from the fate

that looms because they’re afraid to take

the only path that frees them.  Am I

afraid?  Afraid to let them learn the

hard way?  It’s how I’ve learned, how I

still learn.  They may well fail you, too, 

but mostly themselves.  You have

knowledge they need but run from.  

Old Gulley Jimson’s “to forgive is

wisdom; to forget is genius” helps

you now.  To let go when you feel

that tug of war, that will to win in

the other person, that stubborn streak

like a thick brick wall, well-mortared,

is to know true compassion.  She

learns faster when you cease striving.

He hears his heart’s true love song

when you stop singing.  It took you

seventy-five years to touch this home

truth?  Be grateful you stepped ashore,

however wounded in soul and body.

Comforts beyond your present

imagining lie straight ahead.