Donuts

Sometimes I suck as a parent.

And sometimes I should get a high five for being a rockstar.

I suck because there was one old-fashioned donut left in the box the other morning. I suppose I knew somewhere in my soul that my beloved eldest daughter was saving the donut, but I was just going to have one bite. Then it looked uneven, so I ate the outside ring.

Hannah was saving the donut because she knew it was going to be a hard day and she wanted something to look forward to. 

I felt bad. And was reminded of how much I suck on a regular basis. 

So I made it right. 

I was in Anchorage for a conference and bought two of what were supposed to be the best old-fashioned donuts in all of Alaska. They sat in a bag safely tucked away in my carry-on while a little voice kept saying Hannah would never know if I ate one and only brought one donut back. There are days I want to smack that voice, but I ate airplane biscuits instead and thought how two donuts were needed to set things right.

Yay me! And they did. No more guilt trips. At least about the donut.

It got me thinking about forgiveness and reconciliation. Hearing again the horrendous murder of James Byrd Jr. as they executed one of his killers in Texas this past week and listening to folks trying to make sense of so much pain has made me think again about forgiveness and setting things right.

I've been sitting with an excerpt from a recent interview on NPR with author Philip Gourevitch about Rwanda 25 years after the genocide.

GOUREVITCH: But what's interesting to me, too, is - what does forgiveness mean? I mean, to some extent, when I went and I heard the word forgiveness, I thought it sort of meant you'd restore whatever the relationship was before.

MARTIN: Yeah.

GOUREVITCH: And they would say, no, that involves trust. That's a whole different thing. Forgiveness doesn't require trust. Forgiveness simply means letting go of the idea of getting even, forgoing the idea of revenge. Right? Now, even that's a big ask. But it means accepting coexistence.

This is all obviously way bigger than my donut issue, but what does it mean to live in our relationships, community and world letting go of the idea of getting even? 

Justice is different than revenge. 

Justice creates safe spaces where relationships can be restored or at least coexistence is made possible. 

Revenge is inflicting more hurt thinking that will somehow create less hurt. I'm thinking at least part of the message of the cross is the end to the cycle of revenge. 

I'm also thinking I had lots of time to think sitting on the plane trying not to think about how yummy the donut would be with my coffee.