Ordinary Time

There is a place in me that keeps a ledger of the wrong done to me, and I return to it the way a tongue returns to a broken tooth. I rehearse the moment I would finally be vindicated, and the rehearsal is so vivid that my chest tightens as if the day had come. Paul does not shame me for this; he simply names a better direction.

"Give place," he says. Make room. Step back from the seat I was never offered. The wrath is real, but it is not mine to administer. Then the strange command: if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if thirsty, give him a drink. I picture myself carrying bread and water to the person whose name I have polished like a stone. The coals of fire on his head are not my anger; they are the warmth of a kindness he cannot explain. The fire I wanted for my enemy becomes the warmth that wakes him. It does not promise that he will soften. It promises that I will not become what I hate. This is how evil is overcome: not by matching its fire, but by feeding the one who lit it.

Jesus says from the cross, "Father, forgive them," and He does not seize the vengeance that was His right. The Father calls you the one for whom the Son intercedes, the one handed a peace that does not depend on the other person's apology. You are not the avenger; you are the one who feeds. That is enough.