Getting Along

 If you want to get along with any group or person(s), you will have to learn to forgive, and at times even carry their burdens.  I have learned this living in the religious life and especially living in a monastery.  In a monastery, I cannot simply go off to work and avoid unpleasantness.  Each day we are thrown together in our schedule of choir and meals.  We share facilities.  Not much for private bathrooms.  Lots of being together.  Men can be hard to live with, if they grew up with Mom taking care of them and then joined some institutional living situation.  Such men are not much for housekeeping.  And we all bring our baggage with us.  There is no divorcing if you stay here.  But in other groups, associations, recovery, partnering, there has to be forgiveness.  We are not perfect.  Judgment, criticism, false pride, ego-centricity are the ruin of any communal living or meeting.  So my June resolution is to be more forgiving.  Maybe after this month it will become more of a habit.  But for now it is in my daily prayer.