Milk Without Cookies

This week's read has brought to my attention a new term. I am reading Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True, which was another of Oprah's Book Club selections back in the nineties.

The lead character is one half of a pair of twins, Dominick Birdsey, and he has endured a fair share of pain in his lifetime:

Schizophrenic, delusional brother who dominiates the family attention, and Dominick feels obligated to care for him.

Daughter dies of crib death.

Abusive step-father, missing actual father, and dead mother.

Wife leaves after death of daughter.

Girlfriend cheats on him with her so-called "gay" friend (later revealed as her 1/2 uncle) and conceives a child with him too, but tries to convince the sterile Dominick that the baby is his.

So those are pretty much the highlights of Dominick's painful journey. It's not surprising that he's in therapy, and at one point his therapist calls him a curator in his own museum of pain, with monuments of righteous indignation.

What she means is that Dominick has made it his life's work to maintain the anger and bitterness that he feels in regard to his difficult life. Not only can he not let go of his "righteous indination," but he feeds his anger and resentment, cares for it like a fine piece of art.

This made me wonder about my own museum. Although I would like to consider myself a person who easily forgives, I definitely have a list in my mind of people who've wronged me, and I have built walls around myself so that these people can't hurt me again. When I'm really honest with myself, these people include people are I love very much, and that I want to be close to, but my righteous indignation keeps them at bay.

And then I got to thinking, that who among us truly has the right to be indignant? I think that none of us is truly innocent, as we have all fallen short and hurt SOMEONE at some point, even if we are innocent in certain situations. If anyone has a right to be righteously indignant, it is God, but he is always faithful to forgive us, and love us and pour his grace on us.

So maybe it's time I quit my job at the Museum and focus on eBay.