Perdonare

Dear friends...
Tadinya mau nulis dalam bahasa Indo. Entah kenapa, tuntunannya ke arah nulis in English. Anyway, mungkin ini tulisan religious pertama yang berbahasa Inggris....:)
Kalo msh banyak kekurangan di sana-sini harap maklum...

GBU...
-fon-

Perdonare
The title of this article was taken from the book of Mitch Albom, For One More Day. Here I am, writing my new insight and reflection that came from that book.

Mitch Albom, with his popular book that has been widely known, Tuesdays with Morrie, this time has nailed it again! He made such a wonderful story which was packaged in a ‘ghost’ story. And we’ll find out why it’s a ‘ghost’ story…

The Journey that I found inside FOR ONE MORE DAY…

This story is about Charles “Chick” Benetto. He was once a pretty famous baseball player. He was going to kill himself. And the reason why he wanted to do that was most likely: he was just so depressed of himself. His daughter had had her wedding party without inviting him, and that had made him felt so desperate. He didn’t got the invitation because he’s always been drunk and has been living his life as a looser (from the big time as a baseball player, then turning himself into a salesman, that made him very depressed and frustrated).
He tried to kill himself for several times. And then that’s the time when his soul met his mother’s. There’s nothing wrong with that! Despite the fact that his mother has died 8 years earlier! (Well, now you know why it’s called a ‘ghost’ story, right?:))

First, I was stunned. No, I wasn’t the kind of person who liked a horror movie, not to mention horror stories. But this book has made me see a lot further than I thought. And actually, it’s not that scary at all:)

Chick Benetto was taken into several places by his mom. And he met some people there. Some people he knew, but some he didn’t. A secret was revealed by his mom that his father had had another wife, she’s an Italian.
The wonderful thing that I found during reading this book, I found Chick was truly sorry for what he’s done to his mother. For leaving her in such a hurry, due to a game- a reunion baseball game- that his father asked him to go. He left her mother’s birthday party, and then after the game he called his wife. She was telling him that his mother had passed away. He felt so sorry. Sorry for telling her a lie. And so sorry that he didn’t got a chance to see her mother for the last time.

Forgive!

While they went to his father’s second wife’s place. She was mumbling, “ Perdonare.” Chick asked his mother, what’s the meaning of that word?
These are their dialogues:
“ Mom…” My throat was raw. I had to swallow between words. “ That woman…?” What was she saying?”
She gently lowered my shoulders. “ Forgive.”
“ Forgive her? Dad?”
My head touched the earth. I felt moist blood trickling down my temples.
“ Yourself, ” she said.

After reading this part, my heart was trembled. How often we could easily forgive others, but forgot to forgive ourselves?
While there’re so many painful moments, we got angry. We keep the wrath within ourselves. We’re so angry with ourselves. Many times we blame ourselves. Blame ourselves for being naïve, blame ourselves for being stupid for some time, blame ourselves for the failure, blame ourselves for the mistakes we’ve done.
But how many times we have forgiven ourselves?

We need our own forgiveness. Some cases involved no mercy for ourselves. God has already forgiven us, because His mercy is flowing like a never-ending river. But we fail to forgive ourselves.
I’ve experienced that. I myself find it hard to forgive myself. But, if that’s the only thing to get better, if that’s the only thing which can make ourselves closer to God and grow more mature in our faith, would there be doubt when it comes to self-forgiveness?
I do hope, starting this day, we could ‘perdonare’ ourselves. We could forgive ourselves. We are not perfect, that’s why we need to forgive ourselves over and over again. It’s not an excuse to make mistakes, though… But we need to maintain ‘perdonare’ in order to have a healthy mind and soul. We need to find peace within ourselves. With the minister of the Holy Spirit, may peace be with us today and forever. Amen.

Singapore, 15th of November, 2007
-fon