Chapter 4- Mathematics: Exercise 2

Exercise 2 
(Forgiveness exercise)

Tools required:

• Hatchet [imitation]
• Cloth (preferably one which strikes remembrance or relevance)
• Twine or string
• Spade if needed
• Rubber gloves if needed
• Suitable ground for digging
• Person of trust to accompany exercise
• Breakfast
• Wafer & Water (to eat and drink)
• Ground cover blanket for comfortable sitting

The phrase “to bury the hatchet” did not imply “in our enemies back” but rather to bury it elsewhere other than where we may be sorely tempted to put it. In one sense there is humor to this exercise - for many are familiar with the phrase - and it can make for a saving balance if indeed there is a little lightheartedness accompanying this exercise of grief and of departure.

It is possible to formalize this forgiving in a way which should cancel the properties of obsessive griping within us. Ceremony can be marvelous as that pivotal point from which our futures can begin to change.

The pain and the suffering which accompanies any such grievance as we attempt to put to rest will, in some measure, always bear upon us - yet later become transmuted in Heaven - but it is not that that we seek here to alter, it is our hatred we seek to weaken, our self-scoring we seek to make blunt.

Directions:

(only to be attempted if not homicidal or suicidal please)

In the early hours of the morning (not noon tide or night)

take the hatchet carefully and deliberately place it in the cloth provided.

Bind with string so as to cover the tool comfortably and safely - quite tightly bound. 

Find a comfortable position outdoors with person of trust for this exercise and, having taken the abovementioned items, trace a circle onto the ground and place the material-covered hatchet within. Undo the binding and expose the metal.

Proceed to explain to the trusted person the woes of the situation which is causing the grievance. Whilst explaining whatever the sadness or insult which has provoked this constant pain and sore remembrance, place the right hand onto the hatchet and understand that a discharge shall travel up the handle and into the blade (much like the hammer of Thor). Try not to explain how you felt, but keep to the details of any events which caused the feeling. Proceed for as long as it takes - be thorough, not casual, in the remarking.

Now bind the cloth back up again, saying:

“I now commit all demons to Christ

to His Keeping and His Regard.

May my unsavory recollections be deposited here,

nevermore to injure any life, anywhere,

but may the goodness in this, the gentle warm earth,

now transform them with new life into new worth.”

Bury the hatchet.

After smoothing down the earth the trusted friend is to administer communion for you both. This can be done by taking the water and the wafer and simply reciting over them:

Blessed Christ be here with us.

In this water, in this bread before us,

be here now, be in part, be in whole,

that it will become in us,

and You shall become in us, as well.

Blessed Christ this is our first sup

after the death of a sadness,

which we now give over to Your Care. 

 

Please release us from the unholy banterings

which have bled from us our happiness.

Prise the corruption from our hearts

and free us into that peace which is forgiveness

that we may settle this bargain once and for all.

Forgive them their trespasses, and us of our own.

May we begin this new breakfast with Your Clarity,

Your Hospitality and Your Law,

the highest law of all - The Law of Love.

Amen

Proceed on with breakfast.