Father, Forgive Them, For They Know Not What They Do.

And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." -Luke 23:34

The intention of my practice for the last week has been forgiveness. I imagine it can seem strange to choose a spiritual intention for a workout, but that's where I'm at. My mat is the place I explore my emotional dynamics in a way that feels safe.

Instructing others has brought me completely out of this comfort zone. Suddenly my private time to physically challenge myself is intruded upon. I demonstrate a pose while explaining movements in terms that wont confuse the people practicing with me while I try to keep track of an effective and safe sequence. I feel lucky to have chosen forgiveness as a focus, because it comes in handy when I make mistakes. Handling mistakes well comes in handy when I'm learning.

I learned early not to fear death. Life is a short detour, and Heaven is infinitely better than Earth. My Heaven was, and as naïve as it may sound, still is a place where love between myself and others never fades. If heaven is a place, If God is the kind of thing that will talk to me, If I'm the kind of thing that will still be curious about Him... These are my mature celestial daydreams.

I was shocked to receive such warm welcomes after completely butchering my first class. I got rights and lefts confused and encountered a yoga teacher's equivalent to writer's block too many times. Nerves were a huge interference with my breath which is never good, and any illusion of fluency was met with a room full of grimaces.

Later my roommate, a more experienced teacher, encouraged me, "Someone once told me, if everyone in the class looks like they are going to kill you, then you are doing something right. It means they are going inward."

Heaven has been the destination of my inward journey lately. I imagine God waiting to meet and walk with me to my home there. Today He smiled a riddle,
    
"Where do you think you're going?"

"Oh. Hey God. Heaven silly."
    
"Here?"
    
"uuuuhhh... YEaaah. Ya know? The place... that's perfect... that reward I'm supposed to deserve after all the BS I went through down there."
    
"Where?"
    
"ummmm? What?
Where I've been all this time! Where I was born and worked and hung out with everyone else... Ya know??!!! Where I was underappreciated and disappointed... Where I fought for You and my family and the things that are good... Where no one would listen to me... You know that place you made...where there are so many people and so much suffering."

"Hell?"

"No... Earth."

"That's not the Earth. Earth is perfect and so are the people in it. Where HAVE you been all this time? What debt is owed to you?"

Being glared at by a room full of strangers for an hour while attempting something new is probably not on anyone's bucket list, but I made a choice to perceive negative feedback when I could have been celebrating a moment I had worked really hard for. The idea that exertion is uncomfortable is arguably a FAR more logical explanation than what my anxiety ridden brain carelessly conjured.

Resentment arises from lack of compassion. We fail to correctly interpret the intentions of others. That isn't to say that humans don't hurt each other on purpose, but if we are to be healthy people, we must take care to protect ourselves from self-injury. We always have a choice to accept other's intentions towards us as positively as possible or avoid situations where other's harmful intentions are difficult to interpret any other way.

Accepting this responsibility in our dealings with others is only possible when we reach a more tolerant position with ourselves. We never know the true nature of other's interpretations of us- sometimes it's hard to get a read on our own- but we can be sure of God's. I think that cultivating forgiveness allows us to accept our limitations as a natural law of Creation. Acting creatively and considerately within this framework is as close as we will ever be to perfection.