[Oe List ...] A Question I would like to ponder in company

[aiseayew]

Dear Colleagues,

It has been dark, cloudy and foggy, for several days here in central Iowa--a little unusual for this time of year.  Perhaps that is a part of the reason I found moisture seeping from my eyes in the middle of my shift last night.  I tried and tried to come up with the question underneath my rampaging thoughts and it formed like this:  Where does the sense of absolution come from?

I have not forgotten that absolution is a response to accountability.  I am perfectly clear that some would say it comes in the address of the Word, but I know that I often choose to reject the address of the Word in my life.  That the past is approved is just a fact.  It does not necessarily provide the sense of absolution.  Throw forgiveness and grief  into the mix.  There are things for which I have been forgiven for which there is no sense of absolution.  There are things for which I have not been forgiven for which I feel no need of a sense of absolution.  Is there is a sense of absolution at the end of grief.  Does grief ever end?  How do you know?

I may be searching for a feeling, but what engenders it?  I haven't forgotten that grace happens or it doesn't.  I have never associated a feeling or a "sense" with the experience of grace.  

I know of no other place I can pose this question, which might have been struggled with in other contexts.  My e-mail address is aiseayew at iowatelecom.net if you want to reply apart from the listserv.

Thanks in advance for the dialogue,

Margaret