Forgiveness

The third word I have chosen from Consolations, by David Whyte: "forgiveness."  I selected this one in particular because it seems to go hand-in-hand with yesterday's word, anger.

Why is forgiveness difficult?

Forgiveness is a heartache and difficult to achieve because strangely, it not only refuses to eliminate the original wound, but actually draws us closer to its source.  To approach forgiveness is to close in on the nature of the hurt itself, the only remedy being, as we approach its raw center, to reimagine our relation to it.

Once more -- as with anger -- we are asked to transform ourselves, to acknowledge what lies within and move above and beyond. Why should we?

Forgiveness is a skill, a way of preserving clarity, sanity and generosity in an individual life, a beautiful way of shaping the mind to a future we want for ourselves...

Forgiveness, then, is not so much for the person who has done us wrong, as it is for ourselves:  to prevent us from becoming trapped within our own hurt and anger. To keep us from becoming stuck. To help us tend to our own wounds and embrace them as part of us. To give ourselves the grace that we need, so that we may fly free.

At the end of life, the wish to be forgiven is ultimately the chief desire of almost every human being. In refusing to wait; in extending forgiveness to others now, we begin the long journey of becoming the person who will be large enough, able enough and generous enough to receive, at the very end, that absolution ourselves. 

Amen. 

Picture copyright 2015, Mediocria Firma. Used with gratitude.