July-September, 2013
Recently I experienced a betrayal. Someone I love did something so hurtful that it changed our relationship forever. My heart was broken. For days, in fact, I thought the relationship would be ended. When I first discovered what had happened, I shook violently for hours. I cried from a deep well in my chest. In the midst of this, though, I found that I could not name the emotion. It was not anger. Looking back, I think it was a great sadness. I felt lost. I reached for Holy Spirit, not really knowing what to ask for, only knowing the answer lay with Him.
The next morning I saw the traitor and was overcome with disgust. Accusations unspoken filled my mind. I planned the confrontation, playing it over and over in my mind, wanting to be clear. I was miserable.
Holy Spirit, I know this is not Truth, let me see this differently.
I recalled times when I had been betrayed, my best girlfriend, my first husband.
Holy Spirit, why do I attract cheaters?
I recalled times when I had been the betrayer of friends and husband. And then I remembered myself, as a little girl in the third grade.
She loved God and wanted to be a nun when she grew up. She always wanted to do what was right. She knew all of her prayers and studied the catechism diligently. Then one day, in catechism class, she couldn’t remember the answer to a test question. She remembered studying it, and knew she knew it, but she couldn’t remember. Her eyes wandered to her neighbor’s paper and there it was. As soon as she wrote it down the guilt enveloped her. That was the first time I ever felt guilt. I was never able to speak this horrible sin in the confessional. I carried it with me.
Knowing that I was now unworthy of God, I lost my dream of living the cloistered life, though I have never lost the desire for it. I had many friends, but I always saw their failings as greater than their strengths. I became a liar and a cheat, all the while despising dishonesty in others. I became an adulterer and the victim of infidelity. So, there it was, ego’s evil thread of separation weaving through my life.
Ah, thank you, Holy Spirit. I see now. I but betray myself.
And so the time for confrontation came. Exposed, the traitor admitted the deed but with justification rather than remorse. I was seething with anger and threatened separation. The traitor’s head hung low with the realization of consequences to be paid. He later likened himself to the fabled farmer’s dog: Once upon a time there was a farmer who had a dog. One day the farmer heard a commotion in the barnyard and went to check it out. There was his trusted, loyal dog with a mouth full of feathers and a chicken limping away to the Hen House. Moral: If you lose the trust of a friend, you may never get it back.
And I came across a quote from Lady Gaga about trust: “Trust is like a mirror, you can fix it if it’s broken, but you can still see the crack in that %$#** *&^%$#’s reflection.”
I don’t want to see a crack in the mirror. I wanted to be able to trust again, completely, without seeing the scar where it had been broken. It came to me that a mirror can only reflect. It cannot show reality. My mentor once said, “If you smear your lipstick, do you try to fix it by wiping the mirror?” The cracked mirror reflected only the special relationship. The Holy Relationship can never be broken. I felt the heaviness of separation and longed for healing.
Oh, Holy Spirit! I cannot see my brother’s innocence. I cannot see him with the eyes of Christ. I see only the lies of this world that I have made and I do not know how to see this differently. Holy Spirit, take this from me. I do not want this. It serves me no more. I want only the Will of God.
I felt moved to send the betrayer a message of love and forgiveness, but did not. The desire to extend love to my brother grew and I finally sent the message. The response was miraculous, the most intimate message of vulnerability he had ever shared with me. In that moment, in that very moment, I saw the innocence. My brother had forgotten who he was and my only purpose is to remind him. My judgment of him was immediately lifted and I heard then, the Song of Prayer in my heart and remembered my holiness.
Thank you, Holy Spirit. Thank you for showing me that I can never be betrayed.
Lesson 265: I have indeed misunderstood the world, because I laid my sins on it and saw them looking back at me. How fierce they seemed! And how deceived was I to think that what I feared was in the world, instead of in my mind alone. Today I see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines. There is no fear in it. Let no appearance of my sins obscure the light of Heaven shining on the world. What is reflected there is in God’s Mind. The images I see reflect my thoughts. Yet is my mind alone with God’s. And so I can perceive creation’s gentleness.
In quiet would I look upon the world, which but reflects Your Thoughts, and mine as well. Let me remember that they are the same and I will see creation’s gentleness.
The little girl in the third grade is forgiven. I shall never again experience betrayal.
Rev. Cathy Doran, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas
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