The most interesting thing - which I will never forget - was the look on her face when I inevitably came unhinged. She felt betrayed - how could I be upset when she agreed with me? If she agreed with me, what did it matter what she actually did?
What a blessing it was to learn, in the final weeks of her life, WHAT she meant by that, WHY she felt betrayed by my distressed response.
Turns out that she'd totally misunderstood a core teaching of our birth faith - that for actions to have any true value, they must align with our intentions. If you give a million dollars to an orphanage, but made the money through nefarious means, the gift has no inner value.
Somewhere along the way, Mom mangled the message to HOW you act has incredibly less value than what you INTEND in your heart. Small wonder she always looked shocked & incredulous & betrayed by my distress!
Two extremely important things that dawned on me when I heard the WHY of her heartbreaking behavior:
- The unimaginably hurtful thing she was doing was rooted in her understanding of church teachings. To her, it was sacrosanct.
- That I was incredibly blessed to be given the explanation before she died, especially as she didn't share it as a confession, it just came up as part of a larger discussion about something totally different. I might never have known.
Oh, one other important thing occurred to me - how many times have I done or am doing something similar? Makes me way more cautious about what I know and, I hope, more open to seeing when what I believe makes no sense to head and/or heart.
Still creeps me out - what she did, why she did it, how easily I might not ever have understood why. That last bit is what creeps me out most of all.
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