Loose and Release

Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others' guilt.

In my previous post I included an Aramaic version of The Lord's Prayer. The entire translation is very powerful, but this one line came back to me time and again. I shared it with a small group today and we spiritually "chewed" on it for awhile.

It is such a visual image, it almost overpowers. Of being bound with no recourse but a plea to the Lord Father to loosen the cords. As we worked through the verse, we came to the "releasing the strands that hold others' guilt" part and the air in the room suddenly had a tangible tension. In a gathering of only nine people, three of them had brothers that had been in prison for addiction-related crimes. This is a "middle" group. Middle age, middle income, middle class. Anglo living in a fairly peaceful suburb, yet this pain had touched one-third of the group. As we talked about releasing the strands, they told of personal violation and physical threat they received at the hands of these brothers, during their drug and/or alcohol induced frenzies. Two brothers were "clean", one for a year the other had been clean for several. The third was no longer alive, killed in a motor vehicle accident while drunk. It was as if I could almost feel the strands. Strands of fear for self and family. Strands of mistrust and anger. Strands of prejudice and inability to accept rehabilitation.

If we must ask for help in loosening the cords that bind us, aren't there many times we also need help releasing the strands we hold of others' guilt. The strand that not only strangles the other but imprisons us just as surely. One stronger that the others, because the chance for release has passed. I had no answers for my friends. I could only sit there in sadness for their pain. My only hope is that sharing the burden lightened it a bit.