Getting Clear: The Quality of Mercy
Well, I ran into one of the people from my past with whom I have wanted to “get clear” the other day. We had parted under less than pleasant circumstances a few years ago. Some of it was my fault, I realize, but he also contributed to our situation. This is not the one that I mentioned in an earlier article, Seeds of Peace.
Yeah, it’s another episode from a somewhat checkered past.
I’m not going to get too guilty over having had some rough patches in my life. Most of you who are over forty probably sympathize. Of course, I know there are some of you out there--like certain of my relatives--who believe in perfection if not of self, certainly of others.
Anyway, I have not "skated" though my life, and maybe that's ok. Sure, I have at one time or another smoked, drank, cursed, gambled, and chased wild women. Sometimes I did them all at the same time! (Hey, I still curse a little!) Sadly, perhaps, I currently have very few vices left due to the civilizing influence of my wife, Joyce.
Like Mark Twain said, once you give up your basic minor vices like most of the ones mentioned above, you may find yourself drawn to your major ones, like murder, mayhem, robbery, or running offshore investment schemes that bilk thousands people out of their life savings
Thus, I still swear a few of those magic words that I learned from my father and while enduring a hitch in the U.S. Army as a medic, and I stubbornly refuse to give up coffee even under Joyce’s sometimes stern gaze, and I still want to smoke. . .but I digress. . .
I used to work for the person that I met in the local health food store that Joyce and I frequent. As I emerged from the organic fruits and vegetables, there he was face-to-face with me near the yogurt and kefir with a cart full of loaves of whole wheat bread.
I shall call him Michael, but each of us could just as well be called "Everyman." I had run into Michael a few years earlier and we had passed like ships in the night, refusing to acknowledge each other.
Now, neither of us is known for holding a grudge (for too long anyway), and this time we gave each other hugs and said how glad we were to see each other again.
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