July 28, 2024 – B

Last night was my best bad night ever.

Nightland is where I wrestle with my demons
and make my peace with how things are,
coming to terms some more again with what I have done
and with what has been done to me,
what I have failed to do
and what failed to happen to me along the way.

"Forgiveness" is a ridiculous term.
An absurd concept.
As though we can just go on
with what we have done 
to the Africans who are now Americans,
and the native tribes who always were Americans.
Etc.
 
The Wailing Wall is forever.
We grow up over time. 
Growing up is squaring up
with what is and with what isn't--
with what was and with what never will be.

I make very good use of Nightland
as a great place to grow up some more again
each night.
Getting up and living life as it may yet be lived,
anyway, nevertheless, even so.

And, to do that without any apparent addictions
or escapes of any kind,
represents, for me,
a courageous squaring up with the truth
of what's what
and what's to be done about it,
with it, in the time left for living--
in a "Here we are, now what?"
kind of way.

Which is as close to "forgiveness"
as I ever want to be.

(I will always think of "forgiveness"
with quotation marks
because I see it as cheap grace--
playing the game of pretending 
not to be pretending, making nice,
as though nothing happened, but it did.)