PAINTING LOVE.

If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft, red interiors, from the inside out. 


[Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer]

SHEDDING OUR SKIN: The Power of Forgiveness

In 2010, the South Bronx was named the poorest district in the entire nation. According to a census at the time, “Thirty-eight percent of the district’s residents, totaling 256,544 people, (were) living below the poverty line; 49 percent of children in the district (were) living in poverty.”

One of my closest friends in New York is a 38-year-old black man who grew up in the South Bronx. He’s a trainer at my gym, and by all comparative measures it would seem as though we have nothing in common. But we’re human, and we laugh a lot, and we like to work out, and we both have light eyes, and we both think that life is beautiful, and that’s enough, because humans don’t have to be alike to love each other.

It’s almost been a year since we met, and about half-way through our friendship, my friend told me that he had something serious he wanted to share with me. He told me that when he was 18 years old he was a drug dealer and spent the next four years of his life rising in the drug ring in the Bronx and he made a lot of money and he lived a life style of luxury and financial security. But at 22 he shot and killed one of his best friends after the drug world pinned them against each other. The murder sent him to jail for 12 years.

 When he finished telling me the story, I just looked at him for awhile, trying to imagine a person with such an amiable, charmingingly, positive vibe even so much as hurting another person. And I tried to imagine this man sitting in front of me with such a fervor for life locked behind bars for 12 years. And I tried to imagine 12 years in my head – and how long even one minute can seem like when you’re waiting for something - like when you’re waiting in line for a bathroom when you really need to pee after a movie and every person who went to the movie is also in line. And I tried to imagine carrying the weight of the responsibility of another person’s life on my shoulders, and suddenly I wasn’t scared, or shocked, or mad at him – I felt sad for him. Sad that he felt like at the age of 18 he had no other options, and sad that some one died as a result, and sad that the some one was a friend, and sad that my friend missed 12 years of freedom.

And in my moment of feeling sad he said to me, “Don’t feel sorry for me. It was a blessing. Now every day is a blessing and a new chance to start over.”

And it made me think about the power of forgiveness and how badly I wished that people could just shed their mistakes like we do skin after a bad sunburn. And it’s like a sunburn, because even though whatever pain we cause or receive hurts in the beginning, we all deserve new skin – new chances.

It’s strange to conceptualize that all of us only live life once, and that there’s no do-overs, no erasers, no rewind buttons. There’s also no guide to tell us if the decisions we make are the right ones, and as a result, we all make mistakes (if you find one human that hasn’t, please inform me).

And I just stared at this man with one of the kindest hearts I’ve ever known sitting in front of me – a new person – born and reborn – and I ached for all the times I ever chose not to forgive someone, because we can learn to be better, and I got mad about the times I was never given a second chance, even if my heart was in the right place.

I’m sure there are still people in the world who hate my friend for what he did – because we are human, and we do feel deeply, and there’s no way to replace loss in life, but it would be nice if everyone had the opportunity to grow some new skin.

HAPPINESS, DELIVERED.

I wish we could deliver happiness just like we deliver flowers and balloons and cards.