forgive and forget

if you want to survive in rescue, you need to learn how to not hold a grudge.

there was a line in the movie avatar that i really liked....it was something about how humans can't learn because their cups are too full.

now there is a truth..if we know all the answers, if we have made all of our decisions and judgements and filled our cups with our perceived absolute knowledge right to the rim...where is the room for anything different to actually fit in?

i think forgiving and forgetting is the very first step in keeping some room in the cup..i don't know how good i am at forgiving, but i damn well excel at forgetting which is almost as good.

it was the animals who taught me this..the phoebes who piss me off so frequently, the kodi's and jerry's who bite me by mistake every second day, the swingers who bite me on purpose just to see what will happen, the eddie's who knock the 100th cup of tea over my 32nd brand new keyboard, the impatient percy's who flip 7 full bowls of grain out of my arms and into the dirt in the middle of a starving herd, the mongolian monsters who scare maudie smack into the nearest wall...there are many animals around here that can really piss me off.

and then there are the people..the folks in rescue who rake me over their judgement coals and then call a few months or years later about taking a dog or a cat in for them, or asking for advice on a problem one who is not doing very well. the ex owners who bloody me in their emails over some trivial thing and then a while later start writing nice emails asking for updates on the animal who now lives here. there are folks who drop their animals here and then some time later ask if they can adopt a totally different animal from us now.

well if i can get over the animals pissing me off on a moment to moment basis, i suppose i can get over the people who piss me off occasionally too...but i will say that it is more work. that is because the animals have an ace in the hole that most humans are missing..their ace is that i love them...the only humans that hold that ace are my real family, my saints family and my friends. but i can still get past almost all stuff eventually....if i decide that i want to, and usually i have forgotten how mad i actually was so i can let go of things.

the other key thing in keeping your cup not so full is to not only admit but accept that we do not know everything. it is like the folks who actually think they can do saints better than i can...good luck on that one because they do not have even a clue of what "doing" saints really means. and i have no idea how hard or easy it is to live in someone elses life...so i do try to give folks some slack while they navigate their own challenges..if i want that for me, then i better be willing to give it in return.

do unto others...it is a good golden rule.

the last thing that keeps that cup free from forever full with knowing everything, is the ability and the willingness to actually risk occasionally emptying that cup...dumping out that safe but stale and stagnant knowledge and filling it fresh again. that is hard to do for most of us....it is about our self image, our pride and our hidden fears to really expose our half empty cups instead of our comfort and acceptence in our cup being half full.

deep thought for today...i quite enjoyed that movie!

(hah! jenn...find a photo that fits for this one!)

Hey SAINTS' lady did you fall down and hit your head? You said you forgive me ... or did you forget? Anywho, can I have a cookie now?