what I read

Anne Lamott quotes a friend in her book Grace (Eventually), "We can't forgive. That's the work of the spirit."

Score! I feel like I just hit the jackpot. Now I don't have to do anything about forgiveness, not with my literally insane former roommate who could really use a face rearrangement, not with George Bush, not with that one gal at my last job who did that one thing that one time. I can just back off and let Jesus do it!

That's the neat thing about the Holy Trinity: it's like you get to pick the one you want to deal with on any particular day, thanks to the three-in-one deal. For this, I pick Jesus. He's got the whole human experience thing covered, he's been slammed pretty bad in his day, so he's not gonna be like, "Hey. Chill." Or maybe he is, I don't know. Point is, I'd rather sit at the table with somebody who's had good reason for being really mad in a very human way.

And you know what? This is like when you've got some dirty dishes sitting in the sink, and they've been there forever. Say you baked some buttery fish last week, and you've been letting the pan soak, and you just don't feel like scraping the gunk out of there.

Suddenly, Jesus says, "It's okay, gal. You can get back to your knitting or any of those things you should be doing to better the human condition, and I'll take care of the buttery fish gunk pan."

Thanks, Jesus! Go right ahead. I'm going to work on my sweater and maybe do a little social and environmental activism.

Who knew it was that easy? I sure didn't.