A Religious Ritual and a Spontaneous Forgiveness

This April, for the first time since 1991, Judaism’s Passover, Christianity’s Holy Week and Easter, Islam’s Ramadan, Sikhism’s and Hinduism’s Vaisakhi, Jainism’s Mahavir Jayanti, the Baha’i festival of Ridvan, and the Theravada Buddhist New Year all happen in the same month. My home tradition is Christianity, but I’m grateful for all these observances and their witness to the Great Way.

The word April, by the way, comes from a Latin word meaning “to open.” I wrote in my last column that religious rituals and symbols are mysteries with the power to transform us—or, you could say, to “April” us, to open us—into new ways of being. It is not necessary that we understand these symbols for them to exercise this power—indeed, after a point, we cannot, since their work and impact extend to depths our conscious awareness cannot reach. All that is necessary, it seems, is to place ourselves in proximity to them, with some measure of sincerity, and they begin working in us like enzymes.

Then, right on cue, a few days after writing about the power of religious symbols, I had an experience last week that illustrates it. I recount the experience here partly as a continuation of the previous column—an unanticipated part two that demonstrates how religious symbols and rituals do their work—but also in the hope that it awakens you to some April moment in your own life.

The stations of the cross

The church I attend here in Asheville, Circle of Mercy, meets on Sunday evenings in space shared by a host church, Land of the Sky United Church of Christ. On Good Friday each year, Land of the Sky creates a stations of the cross experience in their sanctuary, and this year, for the first time, I decided to go.

Source: Didgeman/Pixabay

(The stations of the cross is an experiential commemoration of Jesus’s last day on Earth—his trial, sentencing, journey through the streets, and crucifixion. Participants walk from one station to another, at each one, encountering an image or portion of Scripture representing a particular moment in the story. It is an opportunity to connect with the story, to reflect, and to pray. The practice originated in Catholicism, with 14 different stations, but in 2000, Pope John Paul II added a 15th. Through the years, other denominations have adopted the practice, and there is a fair bit of creativity in the way the stations are represented and interpreted.)

When I arrived at the church, I set an intention to walk and pray without expectation and with minimal effort. My spiritual director has said to me more than once, “What God is doing in you is none of your business.” So I asked for help to stay out of God’s business, to put myself in proximity to this powerful symbol, let the symbol itself do the work, and trust that whatever might happen would do so outside my control.

The 15 stations proceeded along a stone-and-frond-marked labyrinth. There were other people ahead of me and, eventually, behind me, but it was not crowded. I made my way at an easy pace, not hurrying but also not lingering.

At the 11th station, I read these words of Jesus from the cross, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing,” and immediately, I felt an energy descend upon me.

These things are impossible to describe, of course, but it was a radiating kind of energy, ascending and descending, from above and below, from outside and inside. It was a bit like a current of electricity, a bit like a hum, and I felt it head to toe. I am as big a spiritual knucklehead as most, but even I knew to simply be still, keep my thoughts out of the way, and surrender to it.

After a few minutes, I sensed someone behind me drawing near, and I moved on. The energy at station 11, whatever it was, did not travel with me.

I completed the remaining stations and left the sanctuary, then walked around outside for a while and reflected on the experience. I have no idea what that experience at station 11 was ultimately about—again, God’s business, not mine—but the sense I had as I walked was that something in me was getting radiated, possibly the barriers to forgiving that can be so strong, the obstructions that organize inside when I think that I, personally, or some cause I hold dear is being treated unfairly. I don’t know that that’s what was happening, and if that was what was happening, I don’t imagine that that was all that was happening. But it felt like maybe that was part of it. And even if it wasn’t, if none of what I just wrote is true, what is true is that I long for the spirit of forgiveness to grow stronger in me, and I’m grateful for that.

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Station 16

But life goes on, and this story is not over. There would be, for me, a 16th station.

I left the church and drove to the grocery. I found a parking space, looked down at my phone, saw a text from a friend, and began typing a reply. A few moments later, I felt a bump against my car door.

I looked up quickly and saw a woman getting into the car next to me, her door now resting against mine. Her face and movements gave no indication that she was going to check on what had happened, and I don’t think she saw me sitting in my car.

There was adrenaline in my body, my mind jumped to conclusions about this person’s character, and I felt an urgency to stick up for my property and for “justice.” I was mindful of not wanting to frighten her, but as soon she closed her door, and there was space to open mine, I immediately got out of my car.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Your door bumped mine.”

“No, it didn’t. I didn’t feel anything.”

I looked at my door, and there was no scratch. “Well, there’s no damage. Have a good day.”

And before she had even finished backing out of her parking space, I was feeling zapped again. Not 15 minutes from the radiation treatment at station 11—“Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing”—I was encountering someone who didn’t know what she had done. And I, for a hot second or two, was acting without knowing what I was doing either. But then—zzzzzzz, hmmmmmm—more radiation, working on me at the place from which my protective impulses leap to defend me, my possessions, my work, and my ego.

So, thank you, Land of the Sky, thank you, woman in the parking lot, thank you, Great Mystery. May there be more April-ing. And may everything in us that is not Love be opened and transformed.