Forgiveness

Matthew 6:12 - Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.

Forgiveness. Such a fraught word. It has been abused for many centuries through the phrase "forgive and forget." But forgiveness does not imply or require forgetting. Indeed, there are many times when forgetting harms us more than remembering. I'm not really sure that forgetting is possible in some cases.

I picture God as continually forgiving - we can only feel that forgiveness when we forgive ourselves and others. It is not God who withholds forgiveness, it is us. We are the ones who want revenge. We are the ones who build the hate and anger in our hearts until it explodes. Sometimes on innocent bystanders. We are the ones with hearts of stone and those shards of rock hurt when they burst out and hurt others.

But today i also want to remember that this is again in the imperative. Forgive! Yet I have been thinking and perhaps a better translation would be may you forgive. Perhaps not. I still like the idea that we can demand that God be God.

This statement is also conditional, which is where my theory comes from. Forgive us as we forgive others. What if we don't forgive others? Will God not forgive us? Of course not. It will be we who cannot feel the forgiveness that God continually offers because we have closed our hearts to love. We build the walls and defend them and isolate ourselves in anger and hate. That is a very lonely place to be. That is hell.

Forgiveness is the alternative to hell.

This does not mean that forgiveness comes easily or quickly. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it requires months or years of work on our parts. But if we work on it and learn to be forgiving of ourselves, it will come. We will be freed - let go - of our ties of hate and anger to others. Free to love them instead. That is heaven.
B