A Mother's Forgiveness

I walked through the field, watching Her as She sat in the crook of the lone tree rising from the middle of the meadow. She watched me approach and when I got close enough to make out the expression on Her face, She smiled.

"You do get so worked up on individual subjects, don't you?" She asked conversationally.

I just shrugged, saying "Sorry."

"No you aren't." She said with a laugh. She dropped out of the tree and glanced over Her shoulder at me. "But I forgive you."

"Now that was just spiteful." I retorted.

She laughed again. "Perhaps you are not only a student, but a teacher as well." With an inclination of Her head, She began to walk, and I followed Her. "But I wasn't being spiteful. I have a point to make."

"Of course you do." I said. "And I suspect from your tone, that your point is that I am wrong."

"Now you are being petulant." She rebuked me. "Few are the times that I have come right out and said you were wrong about something. I would like to discuss it though."

"Okay, then let's discuss." I said shortly. "Where are the flaws in my argument?"

Her laughter seemed a musical echo, though there was nothing for the sound to bounce off of, out in the open as we were. She twirled around for a moment and sat down like a young girl at play, enjoying the sunshine. It struck me that She did look particularly young at the moment. "Of course I do, you silly boy." She replied to my thought. "And you know perfectly well why, so don't change the subject."

"Which is how my argument is flawed." I said, more annoyed. "So flawed that my mere suggestion that you point out how has you laughing at me."

"I am not laughing at you. Not in the sense of mockery. I do find it amusing, thought, that you have set yourself ready to include me into your debate. To defend your position about me against my own opinion on the matter." She ran Her hands over the grass, and a single flower rose up to meet Her hand. She picked it and slid it into Her hair. "Surely you see the humor in this."

"Yes. Hilarious." I sat across from Her. "So are you going to enlighten me?"

"Probably not. You are so bullheaded sometimes. I will try to let you enlighten yourself though."

"So you will leave me to talk this over amongst myself and get back to you with what I come up with?" The sarcasm crept in.

"Tell me why it is that you push so hard on this topic of forgiveness. Why you are so adamant against it that you get annoyed when I utter the words 'I forgive you'". She rose to Her feet again, and once more I followed Her.

As She walked along, I watched the various flowers and plants growing up in Her wake, wherever She had placed Her feet. It gave me time to consider. "I guess that I can't sum it up any better than to say that I find the teaching dangerous and irresponsible." I admitted. "I have many points that lead me to this conclusion, but you are already familiar with them all."

"Moreso than you." She said with a smile in Her voice. A hint of sadness crept in. "But you delude yourself."

"How so?" I demanded.

"Because you don't truly have an issue with the word, or even the concept." She turned to face me, a look of concern in Her eyes. "You use the examples of the dangerous routes the concept can take, and use them as your evidence that there is a problem with the concept of forgiveness. A problem with the teaching. But you know as well as I do that it isn't the concept or the teaching that is the problem. It is how some people will misinterpret it and or twist it when they teach. You can't fault the concept for this, because this can happen with any concept. You know this."

"I guess I do know that." I admitted. "But what good can the concept of forgiveness offer?"

"You know the answer to that question already." She replied, turning to walk along the meadow once more. "You have answered it in your rewriting of the concept in the arguments you have already made. This is why some of these arguments you get in bother me. You both argue the same point and wonder why you haven't convinced the other to see the logic of your statement."

I was startled to see that we had reached the edge of a cliff, far below which the ocean stretched out before us. Looking around, my mind made adjustments of the scenery, imagining it illuminated by the moon rather than the sun, and I panicked.

"Yes, we are here." She said with a wry smile. "You hadn't realized?"

"It isn't the full moon." I said in a rush. "It is barely past the new moon. You can't ask me that question now."

Her eyebrow raised, and She smirked. "Can't I? Why not?" As my heart raced, She smiled reassuringly. "I won't ask. Not that it would matter. You don't have the answer now or later, what difference does it make?"

I had to admit that She had a point. Yet a part of me kept trying to find the answer, and that part cried out for all of the time it could get before the next deadline. My quizzical mind kicked in. "Then why are we here?"

"I have my reasons." She said with a secretive smile, turning to walk along the cliff's edge.

I followed her, still slightly uncomfortably. She had said that She wouldn't ask, but soon we would be at that site, and the site itself wasn't even somewhere I would have wanted to go. Not without the answer.

She turned on me, the rare display of anger evident on Her young face for a moment. The steel evident in Her voice. "And why not? What difference does that place make in the grander scheme of the lesson? Is it the grove that asks the question of you, or is it me? You can face me, but not the sacred ground I frequent on those nights? You can visit me in my deepest sleep in the grotto, in the most sacred of places but this one frightens you away?"

I just stared at Her. This too I could not answer. "I know. It is part of what you fail to learn. Now walk with me, away from the grove."

Once again She turned. Back towards the tree, but walking parrallel to the trees that trailed away from the sacred circle. She was silent once more, and I had the feeling that I was supposed to ask Her a question.

"You are such a smart one." She said, in a friendly tone with only a hint of mockery.

"I don't know what I am supposed to ask you." I admitted.

"I know." She said sadly. "If you did, then I would be able to answer, and you could give that answer back to me when I ask you again."

I didn't know how to respond, so once more I watched the flowers spring up behind Her, and the butterflies flitting around Her. I was bespelled, broken out of it by Her pure, musical laughter. Looking back to Her I saw Her smiling at me. She gestured at the flowers and butterflies.

"You have no idea how happy you make me with these." She said with a loving smile.

"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled. "You do that."

"No I don't." She replied. "You see them because that is what you would expect to see. What you want to see. You know every aspect of me, and the aspect that you notice depends on you. You could follow me and see the death and decomposition of the plants that we trample on. You could see storm clouds following me, or any other aspect of what I am capable of. They are all here." She gestured at the flowers and the butterflies. "And so you love me. You wouldn't know by listening to you. It makes my heart warm."

I knew not what to say, and I watched Her walk away back to the grove. As the distance increased between us, I called out. "So you are telling me that my personal opinions may be blinding me to the greater argument about forgiveness?"

"A little bit." She called out.

"So forgiveness is real? Is a moral expectation?" I called out.

"No!" She called back, laughing and beginning to dance again.

"So which is it? Am I right or wrong?" I persisted.

"No!" She cried out again, dancing faster and laughing.

There was no question She was in a good mood, and as puzzled as I was by the other conversation, I wondered why.

The dancing figure had vanished into the grove, but between the trees there was a glow, and the hint of filtered moonlight. In my mind I heard Her voice, more longing in it than laughter. "Because tomorrow night is the only night of the year that you will dance with me."