Mind The Gap - the movie and the message
My partner and I watched a film last night titled "Mind the Gap," currently on Showtime but I'm sure rentable. Here's the blurb:
I found the eccentric characters well-drawn, lots of human feeling as well as humor, with a deep message about forgiveness. Okay, okay, I know people talk about forgiveness a lot, but mostly about forgiving others and/or oneself. What got me about this movie is that one of the men, about to blow his head off, is told he needs to ask forgiveness of his ex-wife and child. "Give her a chance to feel noble," he is told. "You have said to her you are sorry for what you did, but that's different from saying "Please forgive me."
I thought about this later, about how it applied to me. First I saw what a load of guilt my parents carried around, and how I imprinted their guilt feelings and set about creating situations in my life that 'made it REALLY my own guilt.' Not to say that this excused anything I did, or made it any less painful to those I hurt. Anyway, now I realize that asking forgiveness from those I have hurt over my lifetime is something I have not done. I may have apologized and said "I'm sorry," but it's not the same thing. It doesn't allow the other person to express their own innate compassion by forgiving me.
The interesting thing is that the moment I decided to ask forgiveness of people both living and dead, it opened up a door in my soul and a whole lot of light poured in. Painful memories that kept knocking on my door suddenly evaporated. Amazing how freeing this is!
Anyway, I understand now that it's not just about forgiving others and oneself, but also doing the harder thing: asking forgiveness from those whom you have caused pain, either intentionally or unintentionally. Makes sense?
See the movie!
Mind the Gap offers up a meditation on romance, fate, denial and acceptance with this award-winning ensemble comedy-drama. Alan King (in his final role), Jill Sobule, John Heard, Elizabeth Reaser, Charles Parnell and Schaeffer himself star as disparate citizens who must let go of the past in order to forge any possible future, and whose paths converge in Manhattan.
I found the eccentric characters well-drawn, lots of human feeling as well as humor, with a deep message about forgiveness. Okay, okay, I know people talk about forgiveness a lot, but mostly about forgiving others and/or oneself. What got me about this movie is that one of the men, about to blow his head off, is told he needs to ask forgiveness of his ex-wife and child. "Give her a chance to feel noble," he is told. "You have said to her you are sorry for what you did, but that's different from saying "Please forgive me."
I thought about this later, about how it applied to me. First I saw what a load of guilt my parents carried around, and how I imprinted their guilt feelings and set about creating situations in my life that 'made it REALLY my own guilt.' Not to say that this excused anything I did, or made it any less painful to those I hurt. Anyway, now I realize that asking forgiveness from those I have hurt over my lifetime is something I have not done. I may have apologized and said "I'm sorry," but it's not the same thing. It doesn't allow the other person to express their own innate compassion by forgiving me.
The interesting thing is that the moment I decided to ask forgiveness of people both living and dead, it opened up a door in my soul and a whole lot of light poured in. Painful memories that kept knocking on my door suddenly evaporated. Amazing how freeing this is!
Anyway, I understand now that it's not just about forgiving others and oneself, but also doing the harder thing: asking forgiveness from those whom you have caused pain, either intentionally or unintentionally. Makes sense?
See the movie!