“How does one know if he/she has forgiven? You tend to feel sorrow over the circumstance instead of rage, you tend to feel sorry for the person rather than angry with him. You tend to have nothing left to say about it all.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Each night when I would tuck in my now grownup beautiful daughter, I would ask her, “Is there anybody you need to forgive?” She was only 7 at the time but she had exhibited early signs that she understood issues of the spirit.

She was in Catholic school and little did her mother and I know at the time that the Catholic Church itself would subsequently be caught up in it’s own forgiveness dilemmas. On many nights at “tuck in” time there were her stories of experiences with the nuns who had seemingly wrongly chastised or even slapped someone.

There were friends who had treated her wrongly in this way or that way. Each night we would work our way towards a realization that the people who had hurt her and others were not acting in their truest spiritual nature and that we had to see beneath the bad behavior and though we should not excuse the behavior, we could forgive them to some degree. I had my own issues with forgiveness and as a seeker of truth I struggled with how to communicate the reality that people who hurt others must of course pay a price for such actions. But I was also wanting to find a way to say that if we walk around with an ongoing fear of others and what they might do to us and if we carry the need for vengeance and retaliation, we will never reach our spiritual potential. I wanted to tell her all about my painful childhood memories but I did not. After all I was the adult. Still, I should have found a way to tell her my stories too. As we all say – “I wish I knew then what I know now”. However, we have to realize that spirit growth comes whenever it comes. I have now discovered things about my own parents’ childhoods that have given me great insight into the true beauty of our relationship beyond the obvious “they’re right and I’m wrong until I turn18 cry for freedom.” I have learned that the parent/child relationship had great lessons to teach me about who we are vs. who we seem to be when conditioned by our sometimes challenging lives. Now since my parents, my daughter and I are adults, we find ourselves living in a world of repression, depression, denial, alienation and whatever else the psychoanalysts label our state of mind. We are now numb from political and social malaise. Further, we feel helpless against the violent and seemingly inhuman acts that appear to take place every day. Is punishment enough? Is forgiveness even possible when the act is beyond comprehension?

As everyone piles on Joe Paterno for not acting in the proper way in the Sandusky horror story, the question comes to mind – can we forgive him and what would such forgiveness mean?

In Catholic School and in the Christian religion, my daughter was taught that we are all sinners and there was a sacrificial lamb who’d taken the pain of our collective, deserved punishment. Who takes the pain for the Sandusky/Paterno/ Penn State victims

Every religion seems to have its take on sin and guilt and what we should do with it. Essential to winning the games of power building and reputation or even Brand dominance maintenance, rules and laws that prevent admission of guilt seem almost God-sent. Great Powerbrokers have playbooks just like great athletic teams. Mainly the hearts and minds of customers, fans, voters etc have to be drawn into a good vs. evil tug of war.

BonesBallers live to play the game of life beyond this “either or” “yes or no,” “you’re with us or against us,” power preservation game. Let’s face it. We all play it to varying degrees. Do we all need forgiveness of some kind?

Isn’t that the game Paterno played – just only for very high stakes? Did he want to see the boys suffer? Of course not! He played the game of protecting the school and himself. He made a horrible choice in our eyes. I guess we can say he has received the death penalty and maybe even more. His entire legacy will be one of shame. The NCAA may slap its own version of the “death penalty” on Penn State’s athletic program.

The victims are potentially scarred for life. Is therapy or some perceived higher truth about why seemingly good people do horrible things going to be enough? BonesBallers can only continue to say, “What you see is what you get if you can see it.” We will continue to hopefully see more about this issue in tomorrows article.