If you are alive and breathing, then you are in need of receiving forgiveness and extending forgiveness. If you are a parent, a spouse, a brother or a sister, a church member or non-church member, religious or spiritual, leader or follower, your spirit will seek to forgive and be forgiven. In the prayer Jesus taught us, there is a line that is specific about the power of extending forgiveness to self and others. I think sometimes we hear it so often, that our thoughts tend to gloss over this most empowering and liberating part of our spiritual nature.
I remember so vividly learning about the idea of forgiveness when I was about to make my First Communion. In order for us to be able to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion, I was taught that I had to make my soul "squeaky clean" first. In our Catechism, the soul was described as this place in us that was stained, dirty, and dark, and in order to be "worthy" to receive Jesus, the Sacrament of Confession was not an option. I memorized The Act of Contrition, a prayer to say how sorry I was for all I had done wrong in my short little life of 7 or 8 years. I learned how to approach the priest in the confessional. Kneeling behind the curtain, a little window would slide open and I would say "Bless Me Father for I have sinned. It has been ________ since my last confession. And then I would present my "list" of things I needed forgiveness for. After which I would receive my penance - usually, a few Hail Mary's and a couple of Our Father's. I would walk away feeling clean and I could be assured that the stains and darkness of my soul now were made pure enough to be worthy to receive Jesus. I look back on those experiences, and remember how afraid I felt. The dark confessional was eerie, secretive, and not a very inviting place.
As I've grown older, and had many many opportunities to ask for forgiveness and extend forgiveness, and spent more time reflecting on the process of forgiveness, I can't help but realize that forgiveness doesn't always mean forgetting. Forgiveness is a process, and it doesn't necessarily mean that once you say the words, "I forgive you", that your heart feels what you've spoken from your mind. Forgiveness is a journey from the mind to the heart, and what happens to the heart in the process of forgiving is what counts because it is the heart that feels the outcome. It is the feelings of the heart where freedom from blame, anger, hurt, and resentments are both born and released. Sometimes that journey is a lifetime. I've walked out of that confessional many times not necessarily feeling forgiven, but just feeling sheer relief that I made it through my list and that the God I was told I offended would still love me. It isn't until we walk from the "confessional" and toward the person we've hurt and asked for their forgiveness that the sacrament of forgiveness truly becomes a sacrament. All the penance in the world can't do what these words can do for a relationship: "I'm sorry, please forgive me." My confessional has changed. I don't kneel in a closet, in the dark, and pull out my list, but I go within, to where God lives, and recognize that the confessional I kneel in, is inside me. What I do to someone else, I have already done to myself. The fault I find in someone else, I have strengthened in my own life. When I point a finger in the direction of someone else, I am pointing it at me. So when I release someone from my blame and anger, I am releasing both of us. What I hold bound in another is held bound in my self and taking up space in my heart where love should live and breathe. What I release in another, I set free in myself.
We are all used to the traditions of forgiveness. Jesus was very emphatic about compassion and empathy. But there is another view of forgiveness that is worth "chewing on", a more unique approach to this all important action. When someone has "wronged" us, it is simply our perception that we were wronged. It is our life experience and the lens through which we view life that causes us to feel wronged or hurt. From the spiritual lens, the act of being "wronged" is instead viewed as a gift to us, and the people involved are participants in a drama played out for us. This "drama" holds a "truth" about us, something in us that needs healing. This drama reflects something within us that needs to be made whole. Something deep inside me is separating me from God, and the conflict I've suddenly found my "self" a part of is a mirror of who I am at my core. When we can get beyond the initial "sting" of the conflict, and rise above our perception of being hurt, and start to reflect upon the situation at hand, the holy spirit's movement toward forgiveness begins to take place by teaching us what this event really means. Let's look at an everyday example: Let's say your spouse has promised to take you to dinner tonight. After weeks of too many hours at work, your spouse has said that they would set up a date for just the two of you. The day comes, and something else at work comes up and you are left alone again. You start to feel hurt. You start to blame your spouse for their loyalty to work instead of you. You blame your spouse for not making you a priority. You don't feel "first" in your spouse's life. You start to question if your spouse will ever be attentive to you. There is an exchange of words. Voices are raised and things are said that are hurtful. After you have cooled off and you are breathing normally again, and you are open to what God might have to say in this situation, you begin to pick apart the "drama". You figure out what the real issue is, and the cause of your anger. You realize that you are afraid your spouse loves work more than you. You are fearful that your spouse doesn't want to spend time with you. BINGO - at the core of every issue is a FEAR. After praying with that fear and naming what you are really afraid of, you suddenly realize that you have done the very same thing to one of your children. You have canceled that special time alone with your child for two weeks in a row. You have been wondering why your child hasn't been their cheerful self and complains of stomach aches and head aches! BINGO again! The conflict that played out with your spouse was presented to you, so you could see what you have done to your own child. You know how you feel, so imagine what your child must feel. You haven't been getting the message, and so in God's wisdom, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you have the chance to make amends to your child, and you also have the chance to thank your spouse for what occurred. Yep, I said thank your spouse for what occurred. You now have a situation where wrongs can be made right, where compassion can fuel the relationship instead of blame. You had very good reasons for not being able to spend that special time with your child, and come to find out, your spouse had very good reasons for not being able to make that date. Priorities can be set straight again. Apologies can be spoken and felt. Anger can be released on everyone's part so that the power of love can transform you and everyone else. No one in this scenario woke up one day and said to themselves, "I really have a need to hurt my spouse." or "I really have a need to hurt my child." All of this happened to surface a very real fear that needed to be addressed, a fear of wanting to feel loved, valued, and important, which is a core need that every human being has.
When you can see that all of this was done for you and not to you, this changes the process of forgiveness, and literally sheds a new light on humanity. When we can rise above the pain and see the "light" of truth that shines in everyone, the process of forgiveness becomes a shift in energy. When we perceive to have been wronged, the energy we radiate is toxic to us and everyone else. Our energy is focused on our wound. Our energy is around our blame and our judgment of someone else. To forgive someone really means that we had to judge someone as having done wrong in order for us to extend forgiveness. But in a different version of forgiveness, having recognized ourselves in the conflict, the dark energy of anger is transformed into the enlightened energy of gratitude for the awareness that our hearts and minds are joined with everyone else's heart and mind, and that the energy of truth, knowledge, and love are for everyone. We all play a role in healing each other's hurts. Forgiveness means that I am going to focus all my energy on healing instead of on the wound. Forgiveness means I am going to allow my heart to expand in love instead of fear. Forgiveness means I am going to magnify mercy instead of faults. Forgiveness means I am going to believe in a God who loves absolutely everyone, not a God that is offended by everyone. I let go of my need to judge and my need to bestow forgiveness from my throne of arrogance, and instead I bind my "self" to higher realms of compassion and to the innocent nature that is at the core of everyone's nature.
It is compassion, trust in God's wisdom, and belief in the basic goodness of everyone that cleans our hearts and creates a new spirit and right thinking within us. When we approach life from the belief that God is always arranging the events in our days so that we can be fully healed and restored to happiness, the events we "perceive" as hurtful are transformed into gifts of knowledge and truth. Knowledge of God and ourselves. Truth about who God really is and who we really are. Forgiveness becomes a total restoration of our natural state of happiness. Saying "I'm sorry" or accepting someone's apology is only a fragment of what forgiveness is really about. There is a depth to every conflict that goes further than "I was hurt by this person". Everyone in the conflict becomes a participant of healing, an agent of wholeness, and a messenger of truth. One spirit greets another spirit, and gently welcomes the other to a place inside them that needs the tender attention of God's mercy and compassion. By the time you've reached the point of conflict, you have just scratched the surface. You have only touched the tip of the iceberg of your wound.
During this Holy Week, when Christians hear Jesus saying, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do", Jesus is proclaiming the innocent nature of everyone. He is calling us to remember that it is our own fear, and our lack of feeling loved, valued, and important, that crucify. Resurrection is the restoration of feeling happy. Happiness is born from feeling loved. Feeling loved is born from the practice of Compassion. Compassion is born from knowledge of self and God. Knowledge of self and God is born from Trust in Divine Wisdom. Trust is born from Peace. Peace is born from Forgiveness of self and others. Forgiveness is born from Happiness. And so the circle of life continues. Forgiveness restores and completes the circle of life. Forgiveness promises the circle cannot be broken. The resurrection of Jesus ensures our home in the circle of life, which is completed when we feel happy, which is "oneness with God and all people." Forgiveness is a promise to yourself that you will not allow the energy of your woundedness to feed off of the energy of your happiness, therefore depleting its supply and emptying you of all hope.
Forgiveness builds up the altar of happiness and dismantles the altars where we have devoted our lives to our wounds and offered our love of self pity. Forgiveness is all about the victory of loving happiness, and not at all about loving the role of victim. Forgiveness is the interaction of one spirit with another spirit. It is a process of becoming teachable. It is a softening of hardened hearts. It is a recognition of our connectedness to all of life. It is the opposite of stagnancy and staying stuck. It is an energy that is fluid, organic, and ever flowing in the direction of happiness. It has nothing to do with who hurt you and has everything to do with who loved you enough to help you find your true place in the circle of life. Who loved me enough to help me find what has been lost?
This new thought and vision about conflict and forgiveness is a tool that can be taught to our children. Helping them acknowledge the pain, but not staying stuck in the pain is key. Helping our children see beyond the people who caused the hurt to seeing them as people who invited us to heal and be happy can shed a new light on the need for revenge and getting even. Seeing everyone as an extension of ourselves and believing that everyone in our lives reflects a piece of the truth about ourselves makes the desire to thank them even more urgent. Forgiving someone at this level removes our feeling superior to them and empowers everyone.
Forgiveness becomes all about filling our hearts with love instead of filling our heads with plans of attack. Instead of teaching our children that we have enemies, we teach them that we have friends of healing. Teaching our children this process of forgiveness allows us to truly "turn the other cheek" because we really can't be hurt by people who are extensions of God and reflections of Truth to us.
When we forgive often and freely we are filling ourselves up with love and happiness. Forgiveness completes the journey from mind to heart, which is circular in nature. The mind shares knowledge with the heart. The heart shares its feelings with the mind and transforms our thinking, and so changes our heart, and around and around this journey goes, forever inviting us to live in this Great Circle, where Heaven kissed Earth. Forgiveness liberates, frees, restores, heals, renews, and resurrects. Jesus could not have risen without the perfect grace of forgiveness and neither can we. Christians everywhere this week will participate in the Circle of Life as Jesus took his rightful place there through his death and resurrection. He is the Great Teacher of our minds and hearts, the One Who Forgave so that we might forgive, the One Who Loved, so that we might love. HAPPY Easter!
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