Featured – Page 3 – Donna Moriarty

Fixing Valentine’s Day

A pink paper heart strung on red and white twisted thread, and the heart is torn almost completely down the middle

Have you ruined Valentine’s Day yet? Give it time.

You forgot an important date. You said something you shouldn’t have said (aloud). You butt-dialed someone really inappropriate. You got over-the-top angry over a trifle. Now somebody’s hurt or angry, and you’re to blame.

Hey, it happens to all of us. We say or do something we regret. We feel a prick of guilt, a whisper of remorse. We know we should face what we’ve done and try to make things right with the person we hurt. In fact, there’s usually a do-over window when we can go back and set things right. Yet, whether out of shame or ignorance, we let those moments pass. Then we’re left with our errors intact, and only a cringe-worthy memory to show for it.

In my years as a writer and editor, I’ve learned to accept the human need to revise. If our intentions don’t come out right the first time, we can almost always go back and fix it. Of course, I’m not just talking about the written word.

The Benefit of the Doubt

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At a community meeting in the town where I once lived, there was a woman — in her early 50s, I guessed, and new to the community — who was unable to rise from her seat when the meeting was over. I and a couple of others helped her to her feet, brought her to a chair in the vestibule and began asking questions. Are you on medication? Can give us the number of someone to come and drive you home? Waving away our fussing, she struggled to rise, mumbling incoherently, tottered, and sat down hard. Someone called 911.

The police arrived first, followed by EMTs and an ambulance. I led them to where the woman sat, conscious but dazed. My neighbors were clustered nearby, murmuring. “I smelled vodka on her breath,” said one. “She wouldn’t let me look at her phone or go through her bag,” said another. They had been trying to help, of course. But the woman, although weak and disoriented, was distrustful of us.

You don’t have to be Jewish to love Yom Kippur

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It’s Yom Kippur, people. How’s your Day of Atonement going?

Standing the test of time, with roots reaching back centuries, atoning for harms done continues to thrive in the modern world in religion and philosophy, the social and psychological sciences, law and medicine, and even works of art.

painting, titled "The Remorse of Orestes, by William Adolphe Bougeureau" was created by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1862. It portrays a scene from Greek mythology where Orestes, after avenging his father by killing his mother, is tormented by the Furies, spirits of vengeance

Religion and philosophy

Jews have so got it going on with the good apology. I’m talking Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, baby–an entire day devoted to the contemplation of wrongs committed, for which a person apologizes, seeks forgiveness, both human and divine, and tries to set things right.