Those who know me fairly well know that Peanuts is my favorite cartoon. If they knew me a bit better, they would conclude that I pay regular attention to many cartoons.
Dennis the Menace often gets my attention. In one cartoon, Dennis is being punished, sitting over in a corner in his rocker. You don’t have to wonder for what wrongdoing he is being punished. Crayons are scattered all over the floor. The use Dennis has made of them is obvious. In fact, Dennis is looking at his artwork: a house with the sky, sun and clouds, a cowboy. Even if the crayons were not scattered on the floor, the art on the walls would make abundantly clear what had been done.
His mother doesn’t appreciate his drawing skills, so there he sits in his rocking chair snuggling his Teddy Bear, alone with his thoughts. Hank Ketcham, the cartoonist, invites us to hear what Dennis may be thinking: “Boy, I wish life came with an eraser!”
Don’t we all?
Just today I talked with a young man who earlier in the day had a conversation he wished he could erase. He had been wronged, and hurt deeply by an older person, and had stormed back in anger. He wished he could erase it. He would relish the opportunity to turn back the clock to a time when he and his friends had friendly conversations about disagreements.
Few of us haven’t had the desire for a new and fresh start. We remember and are pained by what we have done long after we have done it.
I live in a life care community and ocasionally I hear a senior citizen complain, “I just can’t remember names like I used to,” or, “I can’t remember a thing anymore.” The problem for many is not that we can’t remember, but we can’t forget. Psychologists remind us that the past plays a powerful part in how we live our lives in the present. They estimate that we spend as much as 50 percent of our emotional energy trying to repress painful memories.
It is easy to say, forgive and forget, but not easy to practice. But practice we must. We can practice if we begin with repentance, being deeply sorry for what we have said or done…asking for forgiveness. Then we must act in a way that enables those we have hurt to believe we want to live and relate in a new way.