Do Yourself a Favor — Forgive!
Maria von Trapp was not at all like Julie Andrews. Thanks to being COVID-19-house-bound I’ve learned this and other trivia from YouTube and the likes. The Sound of Music, arguably the top musical ever produced, is, according to the documentary, remarkably like the true story of the von Trapp family of Austria — with one huge exception. The real Maria had a temper so fierce that sometimes when she blasted her husband, the Baron von Trapp, he would disappear for as long as two weeks!
In this Coronavirus lock-down world the Baron would have been out of luck at disappearing. This reminds me of an ad that often interrupts my music listening. I still haven’t listened carefully enough to catch the company that’s advertised, but I do catch their last line — every time: “We treat you like friends, not like family.” Family is where reconciliation needs most to happen and it starts with forgiveness. But, oddly, the people we’ve been holed up with during this pandemic may not be the family we need to start with if we’re serious about forgiving and haven’t already been practicing it. It could well be we need to start with the family that brought us up, or with some other source from our past. (If you want to duck out at this point — feeling that anger is not your nemesis — you may want to hang in for one more paragraph. Forgiveness is a common word but few people understand it. I sure didn’t.)
I felt I was a pretty nice guy when Mimi and I got married. That seemed to change. Four times in my life I had lost my temper. And it was ugly. Now, here I was being almost brought to that point by my wife! (I was a nice guy until I got married — smile.) I would never physically strike Mimi, so the wall I hit (I had to hit something) was not kind to my fist. I needed help. Here’s what I discovered — three major things.
One: Mimi was not the problem. I was. I discovered a huge principle: Close associations — and nothing is closer than marriage — reflects who you Are. Your spouse is a royal mirror. Put another way, marriage zips you open. Whatever’s inside is revealed. So it turns out this nice guy wasn’t so nice. I was an angry man. My anger was some of the baggage I had brought into our marriage.
Two: Anger can be deeply hidden, out of sight — out of one’s own sight. Mine was. After all, it would have messed up my cool guy image. But when your psyche does that kind of work — not unlike holding a beach ball on the bottom of a deep pool 24/7 — your psyche gets tired. This phenomenon shows up sometimes in what is called depression. I became familiar with depression.
Three: Forgiveness alone is the antidote. Anger does not dissipate with time. Forgiveness means identifying the person(s) at the center of your anger or grudge, and letting them go. It does not include telling the person(s) who wronged you that you’ve forgiven them. That’s the rub. They get a free pass. But it’s one of the best things you can do for yourself. Frederick Buechner, writer/pastor, puts it all in perspective: Of the Seven Deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds… to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back — in many ways is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The Skeleton at the feast is you!
We are told that when Baron von Trapp died Maria was “consumed with guilt” — sorrowful that she had been ruled by the baggage she brought into her marriage. We’ll never know if the Baron ever forgave Maria or if she ever got rid of her guilt. But we do know that forgiveness and guilt are two biggies to be unpacked before saying “I do.” Little wonder that each occupies a chapter in our book.
