A Candle for Saddam

C. S. Lewis said that when we first start to practice forgiveness, we should start with someone easier than the Nazis. He was speaking, of course, as a war torn Brit. He had something against the Nazis. They weren't simply a personification of the ultimate evil -- they were evil right next door, evil at his elbow. Personal evil.

I lit a candle for Saddam Hussein this morning. I felt like maybe I was the only one, although I know that isn't true. Surely there is someone in the world who grieves this man today, who remembers some moment of sweetness, maybe laughter, shared with him. But there were hundreds who applied to be his hangman, who wanted not only his death, but to have a hand in it.

I saw the news photo, the noose being draped over his head. He went calmly, at the end anyway, with surrender in his eyes and a Koran in hand. They did it during the morning prayers while most of us in the US slept. Even George Bush wasn't awakened for it.

I have no hatred in my heart against this man who died, this grizzled old man they dragged out of a filthy bunker and put in clean expensive clothes to sentence him to death. I have seen the photographs of the babies he had gassed. He was not a respecter of innocence or goodness or decency. He murdered, by command and probably by deed and by the trickle down inertia of hatred that flows so strong when it flows from strong people.

So it was easy for me to light that candle and say a prayer for his soul as it returns to Oneness. It was easy for me to breathe gratitude that he is now of the absolute again, joined with the souls of those who perished because of him. Home sweet home. My heart bears no scars from this man, no specific loss. He puzzles me, challenges my belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. His crimes diminished humanity as a whole, including the finite little scrap of it that is me. But forgiveness flows easy from me to him, a benediction that I have the luxury to offer since there is no wrenching personal pain in its way.

You have to get close to my heart to break it. Maybe that's why I've always kept people at arm's length, kept a cushion of distance between us so they couldn't reach inside the gear works and yank something loose.

But some people have. And for the most part, the grander part, the people I have let in have treated me with respect and kindness and understanding. And forgiveness.

There are exceptions.

This is where forgiveness gets pulled taut -- our own personal slights. It is easier for me to forgive Saddam Hussein than it was to forgive the people in my life who hurt me. Who said they loved me only to cease all communication with me. Not murderers, not war criminals. Just complicated people whose needs and wants clashed with mine.

I forgave. Be kind to everyone you meet for everyone is fighting a great battle. And so it is with them. I understand this now. Once I got that clear in my head, I was able to let go of the anger and the bitterness and the utter disbelief that it had all really happened, that they really were gone.

And so is the way of the bodhisattva wannabe, the one who makes kindness her religion. She releases everything that isn't love because everything that isn't is an illusion anyway. She releases the past and keeps only the blessing.

Yes and yes again. I can honestly say that I have released every bit of bitterness and anger. When I think of these people now -- my missing ones -- it is with gratitude that I miss them because they mattered so deeply. And still do. I still love them. My missing them is a pain that is testimony to a larger grace, to the blessing that they still are. They helped make me who I am today, and I am profoundly, utterly grateful.

If I have one remaining regret, it is this (and I am working on it, trying to release it too, but it is dug in very deeply). I do not know if they have forgiven me. I remain unforgiven, with no benediction of release. No blessing, no goodbye. It is a desert between us.

I bear responsibility for the collapse of our friendships. I acted out of fear. I demanded reciprocations. I tried my best, I really did, but my best was flawed. I love them and it wasn't enough. My fear was bigger than my love, or felt that way anyway. I see that now for the cock-eyed illusion it was, but then I made an island of my ego and set up base camp. I worried about what people would say, how I was being judged in the cold fish-eye of public opinion. I clutched at security, too scared to even look at what I was going to lose if I didn't make the right decision, like some metaphysical Let's Make A Deal. I needed them to be a certain way, to treat me a certain way. I had a playbook. I left them little room for error, and now the universe is returning likewise to me.

I crave forgiveness too, even as I understand that this craving does not serve the highest good. I don't know if they need to forgive me or not. It doesn't matter, in the end. My challenge is to forgive myself. And that is a great challenge indeed. It involves unsquinching my heart, stretching the cardiac muscle big enough to include myself.

I know this much -- their paths will lead them where they need to go, as will mine. All is meaningful and right in the fullness of time. So after forgiveness comes the real truth -- compassion -- and until I can treat my own soul with both, I cannot extend it fully either.

I am trying. Until then, I light candles for executed dictators. A baby step toward tomorrow, when perhaps I will have the heart to light one for myself.