Forgiving is easy until it's not. And when it's not, it often seems impossible. For me, why would I forgive someone who is clearly (to me) in the wrong and doesn't feel or show any remorse for what they've done? Why should I forgive someone who continues to demonstrate that same offensive and hurtful behavior over and over?
I've been reading a book titled "A Return to Love" and was struck by several things in a section on Forgiveness. Here's a sampling:
"If I choose to bless another person, I will always end up feeling more blessed. If I project guilt onto another person, I will always end up feeling more guilty."
"Our perceptions of other people often become a battleground between the ego's desire to judge and the Holy Spirit's desire to accept people as they are. The ego is the great fault-finder. It seeks out the faults in ourselves and others. The Holy Spirit ... sees all of us as we really are... The places in our personality where we tend to deviate from love are not our faults, but our wounds. God doesn't want to punish us, but to heal us. and that is how He wishes us to view the wounds in other people."
"Forgiveness is 'selective remembering' - a conscious decision to focus on love and let the rest go. But the ego is relentless - it is 'capable of suspiciousness at best and viciousness at worst.' It presents the most subtle and insidious arguments for casting other people out of our hearts."
"In accepting the Atonement, we are asking to see as God sees, think as God thinks, love as God loves."
"It's easy to forgive people who have never done anything to make us angry. People who do make us angry, however, are our most important teachers. They indicate the limits to our capacity for forgiveness. 'Holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation.' The decision to let go our grievances against other people is the decision to see ourselves as we truly are."
'It can be very hard to let go of your perception of someone's guilt when you know that by every standard of ethics, morality, or integrity, you're right to find fault with them."
But the question is, "Do you prefer that you be right or happy?" "If you're judging a brother, you're wrong even if you're right. There have been times when I have had a very hard time giving up my judgment of someone, mentally protesting, 'But I'm right.' I felt as though giving up my judgment amounted to condoning their behavior. I felt, 'Well, somebody's got to uphold principle in this world. If we just forgive things all the time, then all standards of excellence will disintegrate!'"
"But God doesn't need us to police the universe. Shaking our finger at someone doesn't help them change. If anything, our perception of someone's guilt only keeps them stuck in it. When we are shaking a finger at someone, figuratively or literally, we are not more apt to correct their wrongful behavior. Treating someone with compassion and forgiveness is much more likely to elicit a healed response. People are less likely to be defensive, and more likely to be open to correction Most of us are aware on some level when we're off. We'd be doing things differently if we knew how. We don't need attack at this point; we need help. Forgiveness forges a new context, one in which someone can more easily change."
"Forgiveness is the choice to see people as they are now. When we are angry at people, we are angry because of something they said or did before this moment. But what people said or did is not who they are. Relationships are reborn as we let go perceptions of our brother's past. 'By bringing the past into the present, we create a future just like the past.' By letting the past go, we make room for miracles."
"An attack on a brother is a reminder of his guilty past. In choosing to affirm a brother's guilt, we are choosing to experience more of it. The future is programmed in the present. To let the past go is to remember that in the present, my brother is innocent. It is an act of gracious generosity to accept a person based on what we know to be the truth about them, regardless of whether or not they are in touch with that truth themselves.... When people behave unlovingly, they have forgotten who they are."
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