A friend was talking about things in his past that can be called painful. I would say "only be called painful", except that he chooses not to. He certainly has just cause for resentment, and rage. His childhood was darkened by abuse from an older man who had himself been wounded. Not only had the perpetrator been molested himself as a child, he landed in a pile of dead bodies in WWll with a toe tag. He was the only one in three squadrons to make it out alive. 

The person talking did not label the back story as excuses. But they were reasons. Tragic events that rendered a man so broken that he would harm a little boy. 

"Being exposed to pornography and sex made it so that I was not innocent. Even now, as an adult, I am not sure what innocence even means."

He had told his mother, but she felt helpless to stop it. 

We sat quietly. Then John spoke.

"Innocence means not wanting to hurt anyone."

I was deeply moved by the absence of any desire to hurt the person who had changed the course of his life. In fact, and I can hardly believe it, he wished him well. 

I did not. Even though I sat silently there was anger stirring inside me, for a man that I never met who is now dead. Yet the person across from me was peaceful. The abuser had no power over him anymore. 

"I decided to reframe the experience. Look for how it may have helped me. As a teenager I ran. Ran to get away. Five miles each way to the bus stop, plus a little extra added up to maybe sixty miles a week. Sometimes more. I ran hard. I would have been a good track member except that my school was too small to have a team."

I waited. 

"Then I got into yoga. Before that my only thought about yoga was that is was for people who don't eat cows. But I got training, and now I'm an instructor. It's my passion."

Here was a man who could have gathered up the wrongdoings of others like armor, and used them to justify flailing his revenge. 

Yet he has no desire to hurt anyone. Sounds like innocence to me.