The Jerk, the Thief, and I

Sometimes it’s a stretch to forgive another person.

And the thought of asking for absolution is quite another thing

We were on a cross-country trip and we parked our U-Haul truck in the hotel lot overnight. The next morning, groggy and in a semi-caffeinated state, I stumbled towards the truck. I dreaded another long day behind the wheel. Suddenly I was hit with an overwhelming smell of gasoline. To my horror I saw a long slick of still-wet gasoline trailing from under the vehicle.

Someone had punched a hole in the gas tank and drained off 20 gallons of fuel ($100 worth). We called the 800 emergency number and waited a hour for the repairperson to show up.

I must admit that I got off on the wrong foot with this service provider. He surveyed the situation with a lighted cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. I cautioned him not to go near the spilled gasoline. He scowled and grunted, “This is not my first rodeo. I’ve done this before. In fact I deal with at least one of these gasoline thefts a day”.

When he completed the job I made a casual comment about thug who had stolen the gas the night before. His response left me gobsmacked.

“You need to stop voting Democrat (how on earth did he know?). It’s because of people like you that this guy has to steal in order to feed his family?”

That comment threw me into a self-righteous fit of fury (that I mostly kept under wraps).

“Doesn’t he know that the country does better under Democratic administrations?

But what I neglected to see was that this man may not have been the beneficiary of any improved economy. He probably did not have medical insurance, the protection of a union, and could well have been working two jobs to make ends meet.

As my inner churning began to abate two days later I read Fr. Richard Rohr’s daily meditation on forgiveness.

He recalls a time when he was asked to visit a prisoner at the local penitentiary. The woman prisoner had murdered a mother in order to get her newborn child. Richard writes

“I didn’t want to go in the cell because I knew I wouldn’t like her. I knew I would judge her because I’d already judged her. I can’t tell the whole story, but I will share this much: when I left that cell, I had nothing but tears and sympathy for the suffering of that young woman.”

In that moment he realized his need for forgiveness.

After reading Richard’s account I started to think of all my preconceived assumptions about this repairperson like “Probably a MAGA follower”.

It was only later that I reflected “Why do I so easily jump to judgment about people in his caste system?” Reverting to a dualistic them/us view of the world violated my spiritual aspiration to view everyone as equal.

I should have paused to consider what was behind his anger (like my psychologist training had taught me). What abuse and neglect had he suffered in life? What employment opportunities had he missed because financial advantages had not “trickled down” to him? And what was the real person behind this gruff and disheveled exterior?

I had unconsciously slipped back into my white male privilege disability. I still took my life advantages for granted. Work opportunities had fallen into my lap. My whole education was paid for by scholarships. And my ego swaggered because of my PhD and professional accomplishments. Where the hell was my humility?

I stood in need for forgiveness. But not just for myself but for my whole class of entitled elites. It was “Forgive us our debts” and not just “Forgive me”. We need to dig up our spiritual roots and emulate Jesus the champion of the poor and marginalized.

But I also needed to see myself in him.

Yes, he was grumpy. Yes he came across as a jerk.

But so am I.

I’m a mixture of the good and the less good. Prejudice and acceptance coexist in my heart. Threads of my shadow self mingle with my inner divinity. I’m challenged by the words of Desmond and Mpho Tutu

“It is this knowledge of my own frailty that helps me find my compassion, my empathy, my similarity, and my forgiveness for the frailty and cruelty of others.”

My takeaways from this jerk, thief, and I saga is that forgiveness is such a difficult but necessary process in our lives. It’s difficult because of our blind spots. It’s necessary because that’s how we let go of our hurts and hates.

But forgiveness does not have to be such a heavy lift. It comes to us as a free gift of grace. The trick is to balance “forgive us our debts” with “as we forgive our debtors”. Maybe then we can move beyond blue and red Americans, my friend and my enemy, and experience a oneness that will be the peace treaty in our very uncivil war.