:: Sacrifice::
12/20/11

Carli, I was trafficked by a minister, someone I thought I could trust… my father… I was only 8. I understand the anger. May I share with you something I recently wrote to a dear friend of mine?

“I have been thinking much about compassion lately… compassion for our abusers.

I have recently been able to forgive even my uncle Ray, and the man I knew as ‘Whitey’.. Whom has just been taken into custody by the FBI under the name xxxxxxxxxxx. Both with ties to organized crime.

It occurs to me that although I have known many abusers… they seem to have only one thing in common… they lack compassion.

It occurs to me also that as we stand up as victims one of the first things we do is lose our compassion for those who have hurt us… and in so doing… in some small way… we become them… without compassion.

I forgive you Ray, I forgive you Whitey… not for you, yourselves… but for me. I do not wish to be who you are… I choose not to poison myself with hatred and lose compassion for my fellow man. Your actions do not occur in a vacuum… why have we no thought as to the pain, the injury within you that has driven you to such an act? Where were we when you were in need… and how different are we than you?

I forgive you Ray, I forgive you Whitey… not for you, yourselves… but as an act of faith in God. If an animal is formed by the hand of God, grows, and thrives… if then the climate changes and becomes cold… God covers them in fur to keep them warm… to preserve the body. Mankind and his short sighted ways, may say to himself… “hair, is dead cells… Lord you have caused death and destruction! We have found your error oh flawed one, and we know better than you… we have cured the death of those cells.” The cells therefore live, the hair is never formed, the animal freezes and dies.

So often we are quick to judge by our own standards, by what we have learned from our own short-sighted vision. I do not want to see an abuser as a mistake made by God, and presume to fix it. Instead, I want to stand before my Lord and say “God, there is much about your creation that I do not, and can not understand… But I have faith in you, Lord… that you work for the betterment of us all… I will simply find my peace in trusting you… and knowing that you see far more than I.”

I will not let Ray, Whitey, or my own short-sightedness steel my compassion from me!

I forgive you Ray, I forgive you Whitey… not for you, yourselves… but for me… and in so doing… I am finally free!

In conclusion, I offer a poem, a prayer actually, lovingly given me by my partner, Lizabeth. May it help others to find peace as well. 

Live and Love in Peace my Friend,

Jenny

Kuan Yin’s Prayer for the Abuser

To those who withhold refuge, 
I cradle you in safety at the core of my Being. 
To those that cause a child to cry out, 
I grant you the freedom to express your own choked agony. 
To those that inflict terror, 
I remind you that you shine with the purity of a thousand suns. 
To those who would confine, suppress, or deny, 
I offer the limitless expanse of the sky. 
To those who need to cut, slash, or burn, 
I remind you of the invincibility of Spring. 
To those who cling and grasp, 
I promise more abundance than you could ever hold onto. 
To those who vent their rage on small children, 
I return to you your deepest innocence. 
To those who must frighten into submission, 
I hold you in the bosom of your original mother. 
To those who cause agony to others, 
I give the gift of free flowing tears. 
To those that deny another’s right to be, 
I remind you that the angels sang in celebration of you on the day of your 
birth. 
To those who see only division and separateness, 
I remind you that a part is born only by bisecting a whole. 
For those who have forgotten the tender mercy of a mother’s embrace, 
I send a gentle breeze to caress your brow. 
To those who still feel somehow incomplete, 
I offer the perfect sanctity of this very moment.