Mist rises about the ground, and so must you rise above the sod of hurt feelings and that long list of damage done to your rightfulness. Rising above is valor, beloveds. Be valorous.
If you were at rifle practice, you would aim for a target. You wouldn't say: "Oh, someone moved the target. They shouldn't have done that." No, you would aim for the target where it is. You would see where the target is now. You would see where the target is now, and you would see from a new vantage. You would aim at what is to be aimed for. You wouldn't spend your aim and thoughts reliving your unhappiness because someone rearranged the room. No matter how much you were not in favor, you would not aim at the perpetrator of the move.
In the case of hurt feelings and unseemly words or actions cast in your direction, what is your target now? It is not to prove how wrong the other person is. It is not to prove any point. It is not to set a wrong right. It is not to deflate the other person. What is the target?
It is not to fawn over the other person. It is not to pretend. If two countries have had their feelings and rights injured, what is their task now? What are they to aim for? Yours is the same.
Be like a good and wise country, and climb to a higher step. Create peace, not as a stopgap, but as reality. Where there is a misunderstanding, it is not even for you to create understanding. You do not have to be understood. It is perhaps you who has to get beyond even understanding. What is beyond understanding? What do you want to happen? What do you want to declare?
What is your target? It is not to repair really. It is not for you to walk away from either. If your feelings are hurt, you are not the only one.
It is not for you to atone nor to expect atonement from the other. It is not so much to let bygones be bygones. It is to step to a higher ground. It is not to debate the rights and wrongs. It is not to plead understanding. It is to give some understanding. It is to make way to peace.
Last year there was something that bothered you very much. It rankled you. You thought about it day and night for a week. It was very much on your mind. And now you may not even remember what it was that rankled you. Where is it now? Where did it go? Why did it arise?
Do you need an apology? Did you then?
Life in the world is not perfect. Not everyone in the world is perfect. Yet they are perfectly who they are. They are perfectly imperfect.
Whatever you are, beloveds, you are not to hold anything against anyone. Raise your sights. Drop off that which profits no one. Profit another, and you profit yourself.
Someone did not live up to your ideals. They may have been outright wrong. Now you live up to your ideals. Now you be the person you want to be. You can find love even when and where others do not. You must find love in your heart. Irrespective of everything else, you want good feeling in your heart. You want to squeeze your heart with love and not forms of resentment. It is for you to dispense with wrong and rise to where you would like the other person to be. It is you who has to rise.