I was asked again today …

I was asked again today …

What question do you keep getting asked?
As a photographer I always ask: where is the light?
As a theologian I always ask: how do we speak of God?
As a sacramental mystic I always ask: have you experienced the infinite breaking into the finite?
As a father I always ask: what can I do for my children, for all children, especially as they become parents of children?
I do not get asked these kinds of questions lately at all.
The question that I am asked over and over again is very dark.
The question that I am asked again and again and which I was asked again today is:
“Why
I would not forget the past 6 years?”
There are great threats included most times with that question.
After all, my life was threatened very literally numerous times, once I was just an hour and a little cream from death itself, and those who threatened my life and still do will get away with it for sure, not only forgotten but helped to be forgotten.
And sometimes
There is great innuendo of promise that the present troubles would pass, if only I would forget.
And I reply as always,
That the past 6 years have been so poignant and transformed me in ways I even now cannot fully comprehend,
That to forget them would be to cut out a part of life,
a part of life that would leave me maimed, unable to heal.

Now most people’s predictable response would be first not to forget, but to remember … and to hate vociferously.
To which I respond,
That I certainly could choose to end it all with hate, it is in fact a natural response for every human.
But I choose not to hate, for hate is a viciously hungry monster which does not stop at just one thing, but wreaks havoc in all of life, even consuming all hope.
Just as lying does to those who lie, to those who condone it, and the children who are taught to lie impeccably?


There are views of great beauty out there, all around. If one recognizes beauty then giving in to hate sits too close to corrupting that beauty. Hate permeates and destroys especially beauty.
I have struggled my whole life to not allow hate to be part of me, as I certainly do now in the face of the past six years, not least of all the lies of the past three years in Court, and the injustice dealt me because of them.
I have struggled so that I know no other response than to remember clearly what is the truth of these past six years (not to be disillusioned nor gaslit into accepting the lies as if they were truth) and to continue to learn … and above all to forgive. Forgiveness is to remember and to accept what has happened, and to behave as if the transgression had not ever happened.
Forgiveness is not easy, not natural, and most certainly not inexpensive.
I have and I will continue to strive to forgive even my enemies and to pay the price of forgiveness.
Thus so I have answered …
and always I make clear that I have chosen
First
To protect the children
From the same abuse that, if not already, will surely be put to them …
And the same death that was put to me, from which they are at risk.

As for you, what will you choose, no matter the circumstance of your life?
Will you choose to forget, to deny life to be remembered, both the goodness and the evil of it?
Will you choose to allow yourself to hate? To be consumed in a course that has no end but to destroy those you hate and those you love, and even yourself?
Or will you choose the most difficult course forward, to remember fully and to forgive,
And to pay the price, whatever is taken from you?
Even if it be your health and all means to feed yourself and protect yourself from the elements which will be taken from you?
Even if you certainly will face an early death in poverty, though you could still share so much with the living, those who will survive you?

At that price would you, will you forgive?
So that you can hope?
Will you honour your own life by upholding truth?
Will you with forgiveness inspire others to remember the truth, to act on the truth, to trust the truth?

Each person can make one small piece of truth survive. Will you do so, starting today?
Will you be better than you would otherwise be, simply by forgiving that which is unforgivable?
Will you forgive, if for no other reason than by it the children will live, for only by forgiveness can the darkness be survived?

As for me, the question that I keep asking myself is simply this:
How can I inspire people, good and evil, to do the good that they would want to do?
For them to know the truth and hold on to it for the sake of all, to build great, great hope, even in one small corner, their own small corner.

Honour. Honesty. Truth. Hope.
All relies on grace,
And only God can create this grace out of God’s love for us all,
Sinners as we all are,
and we can but trust it is all possible, even in us,
since God makes us also simultaneous saints.
Is it possible in you?


Even in the greys, whites and blues of winter there are other great colours to find and celebrate,
green and orange amidst the white of the birch.
Surely God put some great colour in you?