institutional bitterness

"You're Marguerite Donnelly's granddaughter," a stranger might say to me back home in Western Maryland.  Living side by side for generations, that said a lot.  It meant I was a Durr.  Durrs are prized for their intelligence and empathy.  They are derided for their emotionalism and vanity.  The next thing to figure out was the relationship between our families.  No one  pulled out guns, but if there was bad blood things cooled off.  Even within families offenses festered.  My great-grandfather didn't speak to his twin brother for thirty years.  He'd stepped off his train because he believed in the union, and his brother had stepped right on because he needed the job.
Living like that is frightening, but it becomes engrained, a point of honor.  It was everywhere I went, just like the pure mountain water.  When I became a Catholic I realized that those habits had to change.  I had to find a new way to live.
"Go forth to love, serve and forgive one another." is one of the things the priest says after mass.  For a while it was so convicting that I thought he said it every week.  Everywhere I went in the Church, I kept bumping into forgiveness and I started to try.
I tried a lot of things, but struggled until I drew on another Durr strength--storytelling. I had a nasty habit of reviewing wrongs and framing them up in such a way that the listener would be moved to take up arms on my behalf.  In the middle of such a reminiscence, common sense said, "This is not forgiving."  So, right there, where the story was most juicy, I forgave.  I forgave all of it, even the emotional impact.  It has turned out to be a very worthy exercise, and my heart is much lighter.
We all have accreted prejudices of many kinds, but those supported by the communities that support us are the worst and most difficult to relinquish.