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

[Herman Greene]

Dear Margaret,

I find myself to be very sad this morning as well. What I can decide to do
is not experience absolution, intellectually that is always a given, what I
can decide to do is live in a state of not feeling absolution and going on.
I sometimes think of the song from Around the World in 80 days. It says, "I
journeyed on, when hope was gone, to reach my rendezvous." Many times, I
find myself journeying on.

Sometimes the darkness is healing. I was once given a paper by a Jungian
analyst about depression that talked about the soul receding into itself . .
. going on a wilderness journey. It's an uncomfortable place to be, but if I
allow myself to be in that place, sometimes I find I come out with a new
understanding.

Being one who has been on Zoloft for the last eight years, when asked about
such situations, I always say don't rule out the possibility that you may be
helped by anti-depressant medication.

Speaking from personal experience, I feel I know you as well now through
your writing about your garden as I did from the time I knew you in the
order. I know from your writing about the garden and the pictures you shared
with me, you are a beautiful soul who is capable of much love and is gifted
with writing, gardening and creating beauty.

Herman

-----Original Message-----
From: OE-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:OE-bounces at wedgeblade.net]On
Behalf Of aiseayew
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 10:19 AM
To: OE at wedgeblade.net
Subject: [Oe List ...] A Question I would like to ponder in company


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
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