All the ‘Anonymous’ 12-step programmes begin by helping an addict get off – and stay off – the substance, or the behaviour, which has damaged them, their families and their worlds. But after putting down the drugs or the drink or the whatever, then the addict must tackle is his or her resentments.  Jesus is helpful on that one. Over and over again.

The Great Big Wrong

The biggest danger isn’t wine or beer or scotch or porn or wealth.
Much more than sugar, skunk or crack, a much-loved grudge destroys the Self.

Resentment is a breeding need to shift our blame and shame away;
to hate with certain righteousness: a routine of the everyday.

Dependents of resentment grow more certain, stuck, more lost to heaven;
lost to the gracious freedom of seventy times seven.

Maybe forgiving’s not about those stupid hurts which people do
over and over which annoy and need to be attended to.

It might be that it’s all about certain delicious Great Big Wrongs
which nourish us with spit and spite and which we’ve lapped up for so long,
which whisper at us night and day that everything would be okay
and we’d be happy, loving, strong, if THEY’d not done that Great Big Wrong.

It is addictive that’s for sure.
Forgiveness is your only cure.
Or stick the needle further in
for yet another fix of sin.

^{©2018, Lucy Berry}

^{Picture: Hus Naidoo/Unsplash}