posted October 16, 2007 07:50 PM
Overall, I think there's a lot of wisdom here. Yet at the same time there are moments that this doesn't apply--and it's also good to remember to have mercy on yourself, too, for the mistakes you make (even when you do act in revenge). But "Letting it go" isn't always possible. I know someone who prayed to God for decades, I think, and she THOUGHT she was over it, but it festered within her. She wasn't able to let it go until she finally cursed the ones who wronged her. She doesn't know if it worked, but she was able to let it go then.
Another thing about her...a serial rapist broke into her apartment and tore her up. She SHOULD have killed him as he came in. But instead, she just prayed, because she was raised on similar advice as what the OP states. And she paid the price for it.
Later, she was called into the police station more than once. The serial rapist, knowing how to play the system, walked. She met both former and later victims. Had she acted in self-defense (which at the time she couldn't differentiate from vengeance or vigilantism) or even took vengeance later, not only would it have not haunted her (or less than it did anyway), but there would be less negativity and pain in the world. IOW, SHE was the universes's way of handling it, and she messed up by showing mercy, and the negativity and guilt (from the victims that happened after her) of it haunted her for decades.
As usual, YMMV.
That said, I had an interesting experience when I was 18. I was dreaming when I suddenly felt an "evil presence." I went into my friend's room (in fact, she was the one I mentioned above as having held it in for decades) and got her gun out. Just in time, too, as the man who sexually assaulted me when I was 13 appeared as an incubus with bat wings, fangs, and the like.
"Are you going to shoot me with that?" he asked sweetly.
"No," I lied, and then shot him in the head. But all there was to show for it was a red mark, and he mocked me. I prepared to shoot him again and then I realized that he WANTED me to shoot him. So I turned my back on him and told him he no longer mattered to me, I was no longer in his power and never would be again.
He hissed, and I felt him move on me, but I consciously resisted giving him anymore of my fear or anger. And then he was gone, as was the evil feeling. I walked out and my friend asked why I had her gun out. I said, "Nothing, just someone showed up but he's gone now." She took the gun from me to put it up and I woke up.
Waking up, I had the oddest feeling that the spirit or soul of that person was dead. And it NEEDED me to feel victimized so that it could drain me to remain in the astral realm or whatever you wanna call it. By doing what I did, I kept him from using me. And ironically, that hurt him more than my hatred ever could. But even if that's not the case at all, it was good for me to let it go.
However, I will never feel love for him, or even forgiveness in the Christian sense of the word. It's just a letting go of it and moving on. My sentiment towards him is like a virus or natural disaster. It happened, people like that exist, just move on and try to be better prepared next time.