39: Release Resentment (but just for today)
We sat at the big dining room table right after church on Sunday.
Not quite as “Normal Rockwell” as it might sound, but after a few rounds of revolving debate on whose actual turn it was to set the table and my insistence that my brother was perfectly capable of setting the table…it was time for Sunday brunch.
One of my favorite memories repeated weekly.
Only one slight problem.
I can still feel it — like the quick action of acid reflux — anger fermented over time and cemented with self-righteous indignation.
Like a slow burn, I started off quietly and then in the whipping escalation known to those with whom I have shared life –a single comment delivered with precision, aimed at my mother with references to my brother,
“Just exactly why do I get one sausage and he gets three?” (not referencing the fact that there was a differentiation of five years and ten inches)
It was 53 years ago and I can still feel the churn.
That’s what I am doing today — not giving up the sausage
(or the fact that I asked my mother that question shortly before she died for the 150th time…)
But, just for today…I am giving up the resentment
Just for today — My Lenten Practice for these 24 hours —
Release Resentment
(with complete confidence that it will still be available when this Lenten fast has concluded)
Resentment –– the old anger that has been regurgitated enough times that it is a permanent residence in my heart of rock.
You know the list:
the kid who never picked you for the team at recess
the driver who cut you off this morning
the co-worker who suggested your idea at the team meeting as though it was an original thought
the bank that should never have charged you for that overdraft
the teacher who did not grade your paper correctly 26 years ago
the “flyover” as your gifts were flown over in deference to someone less talented, less qualified and less capable
Just for today — I am locating that cavern deep within the canyon of my being where the score is kept and the scoreboard never gets reset…and I am going to empty out that space — with the promise that this is just for Lent and my well packaged Resentments will be waiting to be packaged away again in just 24 hours.
Unless of course, they are no longer welcome (which seems unlikely)
but, I have gotten very used to them…they are rather like old friends that I can resurrect when life gets too good or my favorite visitation time — in the middle of the night when reviving every past grievance fuels insomnia —
But, just for today — I am going to take the leap and live without the confidence I have in the past grievances and oversights and missed links of sausage.
Just for today — when those ghosts of daily disappointment appear — I am going to send them on their way.
Just for today — I am going to see what it feels like to live without them.
And then, we will see what’s next — Just for today….
“I have set before you life and death, the blessing and curse…Choose life, then.”
Deuteronomy 30:13
