{Easing the Burden}[29th March 1987]

[Redbook3:62-63][19870329:1210l]{Easing the Burden}[29^th March 1987]

19870329.1210(BST)

[continued]

One point about the past, externally, is that until very recently it has often returned to haunt me with guilt feelings and simple (but intense) embarrassment about various things I have said and done in the past. Quite unexpectedly, and within the last week(s) or so, these shadows from the past have ceased to have power over me – for now, at least; as have the bitternesses I have felt at the past behaviour of other people. I have often tried to abolish these feelings; now they have just gone, without my trying.

One example, of course, is the matter of the flat*. Another is over the [Preserved] Railway extension: I tried to help, but felt I had to resign after a while, and have felt ever since that I had betrayed both the Railway [Preservation Society] and my parent's neighbours**. Last night in bed I found myself composing a letter (in my mind) explaining what had happened (in response to imaginary uninformed criticism), and realised at the end of it that I had done nothing to be ashamed*** or embarrassed about at all.

In other words, I am coming to terms with the past: seeing it as it really is, not exaggerating my own fault; and where I was at fault, accepting the fact that I have been wrong (and no doubt will be again), and that only a human standard is expected of a human being. Until I began writing this, it had not occurred to me that this may be what is described in the easing of the burden of guilt by the forgiveness of sins: a doctrine to which I have not in the past paid all that much attention.

*[[Redbook3:15-16][19860907:0612j]{A Dream: [(6)] of Madness}[7^th September 1986]; 

[Redbook3:19-20][19860907:0612n]{Dreams and Prophecies [continued(3)]}[7^th September 1986]; 

[Redbook3:44-46][19870327:2157d]{Separation}[27^th March 1987]];

**[whose land it affected]

***cf. [Redbook3:51-52] 19870328:2207 {A Dream: Of Loss}[28^th March 1987]?

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