Tag Archives: forgiveness

Healing the Beast

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The beast, wounded,
snarls and snaps.

There is a correlation
between unhappiness
and being mean. The unhappy feel
their meanness is justified —
after all, if they aren’t happy,
why do they owe thoughtfulness
to others?

The beast must be captured
with cords of understanding,
wrapped in kindness
till it can’t lash out. Slowly, then,
we can start to heal those wounds
it has inflicted on itself

It may seem more natural
to try to punish it, for all the damage
of its many incarnations,
but that is what the beast would mandate

Let us then heal
the beast within ourselves,
that our hands may be free
to bind and heal the larger, outer beast.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 1, 2017

Forgive Me

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Forgive me, for I didn’t expect
the swift slap of anger that rose up
as if from within me, that blew
my behavior off course a couple of feet
before I crouched down and let it go,
so much useless, howling nothingness
that tried to make me think it was important,
that tried to make me feel justified

Forgive me, for I reacted,
in that moment, so full of myself
that I forgot to see you. Forgot
that seeing you is the one excellent thing
I can do for myself, what makes me
realize myself more fully. That is to say,
seeing you will lift me from myself
to my true being,
fulfilling the role that Life intends,
good for you and me.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 10, 2017

Clear

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clouds from breezeway

Let my heart be soft,
let it release constrictions,
let me trade in my judgments
for innocence

Let my breath be full,
let my soul feel its expansion,
let me trade in my regrets
for forgiveness

This is a time of freshness,
two nights’ thunderstorms
achieving crispness on the second morning,
the hot thickness, for now,
cleared from the day,
This is a time for clear eyes, too,
scratchy opinions
all washed away.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 24, 2016

Retrospective

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gateway

What forms us, what
makes us what we are,
what brings us to this place,
this state of being?

(Certainly it’s early
to wax retrospective,
with this, the greatest work
of our lives, before us)

(Clearly we have seen,
the story of our past is
the product of our present lens,
it shifts with each tilt of the head,
it doesn’t show us anything)

And yet, there is a fullness
in this sunny afternoon
flooded with memories,
there is a fondness
for what we have been,
however foolish

There is hope that all will yet bear fruit,
and all will be forgiven,
there is time
to let our lives unfold.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 7, 2016

Rise Up

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Oxalis,maple

You are innocent.
There are no wrongs
for which you must atone,
no layers of pain and shame
rolled up in justification,
rolled up in anger,
rolled up in desperate deeds

There is no errant course
that justifies your bondage,
no years indentured
that you have to pay,
there are no habits
which keep you stooped, submissive,
no lock and key upon your day

You are innocent,
and you are thereby free
to shine the light of you, to be
the things you always sensed
were your potential.
You have not lost them,
you have not forgotten,
you have not failed
to take the needed way.
Stand up and walk —
all blunders are forgiven —
You are granted your primal peace today.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 27, 2016

No Story

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Laurels

Well you told your story
sounding so justified,
it had me bleeding
for the other side

There has to be a way,
there has to be a win
where forgiveness counts
and compassion enters in

Stories are as common as desires
and as compelling —
I get caught up in the string of one
and in its telling,
and then I see in me
someone I don’t recognize,
I find I have forgotten
someones eyes . . .

No story, please, to set us each
in our appointed place of right or wrong,
just this, the being here,
the blessing and the song.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 31, 2016

What I Remember

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dead thistles

I came to this place falling,
dodging the clattering false
dichotomies (strict or permissive,
realistic or lovely)
bearing the angular unhappiness
of life as taught
(so far removed from my longings)
settling for (seeing no choice)
the indifferent acceptance, the
provisional belonging,
taking for granted the gray
gaping loneliness
stretched in long swaths
across my days

No, not this! Not this,
rather, what was there through it all,
the deep hopes (that glinted, often helpless,
behind the machinations),
the quick stolen acts of kindness,
the moments of honest expression
whose light spilled out
over all the darkness
and saved me, really,
time and again. Those were the real gifts,
the ones they intended all along,
the ones we intend, too.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 23, 2016

Needs

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willows and raindrops

Any one of us can give
that which is needed,
and our giving will be
what we most needed as well

Anyone can catch and kindle
the contact of eyes,
which forms a spark,
forms a river,
which warms us up and quenches our thirst
at the same time, as no single element can do

Any one of us can forgive
that which was not given —
we all have suffered
the momentary overwhelm of fear,
or the stuckness of static suppositions

Today I need both:
the giving and forgiving.
Grant me the moment,
grant me grace.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 11, 2016

Reconciling

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tree limbs, sky

Still longing for
the completed circuit,
the gathering of everything,
the fulfilled promise,
putting it all to bed
at end of day

Longing for that,
even as the greater light
begins to rise,
providing higher resolution,
where the dearly held
dream of reconciliation
is subsumed
by the fact of oneness.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 15, 2016

Beans

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moon in trees

This smoothing truth
silences the petty bean counter
who tallies wrongs
and weighs the price
of full forgiveness

It spills the beans
(shiny and hard,
skidding and bouncing) —
they roll off to find
their ground, their soil,
their splitting and swelling
and becoming

And as for us —
this truth counts us whole,
counts us in.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 14, 2016