my wife and i have been watching the first season of the british detective show, unforgotten, in which the police are trying to discover the person who murdered a black teenager in the 1970s. the young man's body has been discovered buried in the basement of an old building some forty years later. in the process of the investigation, we are introduced to a number of people who are linked to the building and the neighborhood surrounding it. as the series continues we learn how their actions four decades earlier have affected their lives and the lives of their families. we meet an anglican priest who had a brief affair with a teenage girl shortly after his marriage to his current wife, a woman who was involved with a racist organization that made the lives of many non-white londoners miserable and who has spent the rest of her life trying to atone for her actions as a young woman while covering up her past life, an elderly wheelchair-bound man whose wife suffers from dementia but believes that her husband was responsible for some terrible crime years ago, the mother of the murdered young man who has grieved for him since he left home to escape an abusive father and who suddenly stopped communicating with her for reasons unknown to her, a woman who was the girlfriend of the murdered man, and a prominent businessman being considered for an important political appointment who has tried to cover up a career as a member of an organized crime family in his early adult life.
many of these characters try to deny their past lives, excusing the ways they've harmed others as past history that is now irrelevant. others feel great remorse and beg the forgiveness of those who love them who are seeing their lives destroyed by the ongoing investigation. the mother of the murdered boy feels a sense of closure as she learns of his death, visits the site of his burial, and follows the investigation that will ultimately lead to her son's killer and the reasons for his murder. as i've watched, i've thought about how i, like everyone else i suppose, have done things in my past that i'd just as soon forget and that i hope others don't find out about. these youthful indiscretions may have had profound effects on others that i know nothing about, just as the actions of the characters in this show have done. i can't help but wonder if any of my earlier regrettable actions may come back to bite me at some point. i hope that nothing i've done has caused anyone else great suffering or put someone on a destructive path.
i think about how our attitudes toward the role authority figures play in the lives of those over whom they have authority, especially over children. when i was growing up, it wasn't unusual for male high school teachers to date and sometimes marry their female students. somehow to us teenagers it seemed romantic that one of our classmates would fall in love with and marry a teacher that we looked up to. today such a relationship is not just inappropriate but illegal. as we've become more sensitive to the rights of women, we've seen how wrong the patriarchal attitudes of men towards women are, but not so many years ago actions that we would now call sexual harassment were viewed as matters of course in the natural relationship between men and women. standards of conduct have changed for the better but it seems wrong to use today's standards to condemn past actions and to belittle others for what was, at the time, acceptable behavior. that is not to say that crimes should be swept under the carpet and ignored. sexual abuse ought to be prosecuted regardless of how many years have passed between the time of its occurrence and its discovery by the legal authorities.
what i'm trying to say is that i wish i had realized years ago how my actions may have affected others, not that i was ever guilty of abuse or anything illegal. i certainly did things that caused hurt to others and failed to understand that as someone who was looked up to by young people i should have been more mindful of how my actions might influence them. my thoughtless use of tobacco as a young teacher, for instance, may have led some of my young charges to take up the habit and become addicted. my taking advantage of my authority to snap at a student for some violation of the rules or for making a mistake caused hurt and may have inspired cruelty in impressionable minds. my use of coarse language and innuendo when among young male students may have caused them to think that such behavior is acceptable for young men, as indeed it was many years ago, though it certainly wasn't right--something that i knew and should have acted on.
cruelty and thoughtlessness are never justifiable. what we do has an impact on those around us and may start a series of ripples that can touch lives that we never dreamed would be affected. i can't change past actions, nor can i live my life dwelling on them. i can remember and try to live with greater lovingkindness and mindfulness. i can, as the formerly racist woman in the detective series did, try to make amends by the way in which i conduct myself in the present. we can all try to forgive ourselves and reach out to those who we know may have been hurt by what we did in the past.
may we not dwell on past mistakes but learn from them. may we take responsibility for the harm we've done. may we live in each present moment with the knowledge that it will never come again, filling our hearts with love and showing that love towards all those whose lives we touch. may we be ready to forgive ourselves and those who injure us. may we be grateful for the opportunities life gives us and for the lessons it teaches us. shalom.
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