today. In fact its still burning as I write. Nothing to do with hate, revenge, fear, or shame, it just seemed time to offer it as a sacrifice and with it any remaining pain or hurt from those long ago days.
There is nothing to go back to, all that was done was done and all that was forgiven was forgiven. There is nothing I need from that time and nothing to cling to. I found that symbol hanging in my closet, a symbol of everything good and bad. heights and depths, nothing more, nothing less, and it was time for it to go. Why cling to that which cannot be changed? Why seek redemption in a past when there is so much good in the present?
I am not the person I was in high school. I have played music before hundreds. I have preached before Bishops. I have given my life to one woman. I have been at the bedsides of the dying and I have brought people into life through baptism. I have written poems. I have faced danger and demons. I have talked to lost teenagers in the middle of the night. I make people laugh and I do my best to love freely. Whatever I was I try to be better. I choose to forgive and forgive myself. I pray for my classmates. I’m Ithankful for all that went before because it helped shape me and looking forward to what lies ahead.
The jacket was in the way, it was a reminder of days past, a memory of harder times. I couldn’t go on with it dragging me to a distant past so remote from who, by the grace of God, I have become. Those days are gone. This day is good. The fire was the way to offer it all up to the God who loved me then and loves me now. He is my purpose. And it didn’t fit anyway.
No more regrets. No more need to look to that time to redeem me. If my stay there wasn’t always exemplary my life after would certainly do credit to Mahtomedi High School yet it was not me, but Grace that has brought me safe thus far.
Come to think of it, though, I do have one regret. Years after graduation I found out that Chris Mauricio was interested in me. I like where I am now, and deeply love who I am with, but had I known back then I would have asked her out in half a heartbeat.
The Beautiful Path 
This gives me thought to some of the “stuff” I have hung on to, collected or just couldn’t toss away.
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Bet what you found out wasn’t even true – Jesus is your heartbeat – forget about Chris
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Jesus is. Its just that back in those days I would have liked a chance to go out with her. : )
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I’ve felt the same way about similar things — why do I hold onto this stuff? Like who will care about my senior prom and all the memories associated with it? Who will care that I created these things back when — things that just sit in boxes, left forgotten under the stairwell or in the attic. And of the people I’ve known and befriended years ago and think about from time to time, who even gives me a second thought, enough to even say “hi.”
There is too much in the present to savor, enjoy and invest ourselves into. Maybe letting go of the past (good or bad) for the sake of having more room to embrace the present, is a good thing.
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