Poor Jim Cramer

Poor old Jim Cramer. He's been on my mind a lot lately. I can't help but wonder what he did to deserve such a fate. It's sort of like when in Colonial times they publicly humiliated wrong-doers by putting them in the post (not The Washington Post, but I suppose that could be another form of humiliation) or the ducking stool. I figure Jim was one of the church elders and he sneaked some vodka into the punch bowl at Myrtle Biggs's 90th birthday party, got everyone out there dancing the hoochie-coochie, then he dropped his pants. Or maybe he just ran off to Vegas with the choir director with money from the collection basket.

Jim Cramer came to mind yesterday at church. I went to the Quaker Meeting at Langley Friends. One man stood and spoke of the Lord's Prayer and the concept of forgiveness. He asked us to consider Jesus's words "as we forgive those who trespass against us." And I thought about Jesus, dying on the cross, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Can there be any deeper level of forgiveness than that? I saw the meaning of the words in a new light—if I expect God to forgive me, then I have to aspire to be godlike and have that same depth of forgiveness for others. The “others” in a general, detached sense, are not difficult to forgive. It's easy to forgive anonymous people, people without faces who haven't hurt me. I forgive you, Jim Cramer. Now I'll work on forgiving the others.