(Cross posted in World of SoulCollage® Spiritual Companion Village)
Forgiveness is a word I have been sitting with lately and the difficulty surrounding its practice.
We speak of forgiveness as though it were a decision we make once and then move on. But anyone who has been deeply hurt knows that forgiveness is rarely that tidy. Sometimes it comes in pieces. Sometimes we think we have forgiven and discover, months or years later, another layer of hurt waiting to be noticed.
Jesus speaks often about forgiveness. Forgive not “seven times, but seven times seventy times”. Love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you. And in the Sermon on the Mount, he offers another rather startling invitation: if you bring your gift to the altar and remember that another has something against you, leave your gift and first be reconciled.
First be reconciled.
There is something about that phrase that makes me pause. Because reconciliation and forgiveness are not quite the same thing.
Jewish tradition gives us the beautiful concept of teshuvah which means a turning or a returning. It can include recognizing the harm we have caused, taking responsibility, making amends, and turning toward a different way of living.
Even the word we often translate as “sin” invites a different way of seeing. The Greek word which means missing the mark has been translated as “sin”. “Sin” has so much negativity, guilt and shame yet “missing the mark” feels full of grace. When we see our failings as falling short of the way we might have lived or of failing to love as fully as we might have loved we’re more internally motivated to change. There is accountability in that understanding, but also the possibility and hope of turning, beginning again, and returning to the path. Much like the path of the labyrinth, we turn again and again moving closer and closer to the center where we receive grace, light and love and whatever we need to be whole again.
Forgiveness, though, does not require us to pretend that nothing happened. Nor does it necessarily mean that trust is immediately restored. Sometimes reconciliation is possible. Sometimes it takes time. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is establish a boundary and allow a relationship to remain changed, let go, and move on.
Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth-century English mystic, wondered deeply about mercy and forgiveness. She came to understand God’s mercy not simply as a response to our wrongdoing, but as something much larger, something woven into the very nature of divine love. In the midst of her own questions about suffering and what she called “sin,” she received the assurance that “all shall be well.”
I don’t hear those words as a promise that everything that happens to us is somehow okay. Some things are not okay. Some wounds change us forever. Some relationships cannot be restored to what they once were. Perhaps “all shall be well” is something quieter: an assurance that our wounds do not have the final word. We let go of past wounds and move on knowing that some people come into our lives for a season, some for a reason and even fewer for a lifetime.
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote often about looking deeply into our suffering and the suffering of others. Looking deeply does not mean excusing what someone has done. It means becoming curious about what lies beneath our anger, our hurt, and even another person’s harmful actions. When we can see the suffering that gives rise to suffering, compassion sometimes becomes possible. Compassion, then, it seems becomes a choice to release that relationship and person with grace, light and love and continue walking our own path.
Sometimes, perhaps, forgiveness begins there. Not with saying, “What happened was okay.” But with saying, “I am willing to see this more fully. I won’t pretend it never happened but I will not allow it to define me.”
And then there is Francis.
October 4 is the feast of Francis of Assisi, and I find myself thinking about a journey he made more than eight hundred years ago.
In 1219, in the midst of the Fifth Crusade, Francis crossed the battle lines at Damietta in Egypt and went into the camp of Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil, the Muslim ruler whose forces were fighting the Crusaders. Francis was entering the camp of someone his own people regarded as the enemy. He went with the intention of preaching the Gospel, but what happened was also something much more human: two people from opposing sides met, talked, listened, and discovered one another face to face. They spent several days together before Francis returned safely to the Christian camp. We cannot know exactly what was said between them, but the encounter itself is remarkable.
I wonder what it means to cross a line like that. Not to abandon what we believe. Not to pretend that differences don’t matter. But to become willing to meet the person on the other side of the line.
Francis did not have to make the Sultan into a Christian before he could sit with him. The Sultan did not have to become Christian before Francis could listen. Perhaps there is something here for us when we think about forgiveness.
Thomas Merton wrote, “Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love.” He went on to say, “It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is, and who we are.”
Because sometimes the “Other” is not someone who has hurt us personally. Sometimes it is the person whose beliefs frighten us. The person whose politics anger us. The person whose religion, culture, choices, or way of seeing the world seems completely foreign to our own. It is easy to forgive someone we already understand. It is harder to remain open to someone we have learned to fear.
Fr. Greg Boyle speaks of the blindfold falling away, the blindfold that keeps us from seeing ourselves and one another clearly. He says that when it falls away, we begin to see what God sees: that we are all unshakably good and that we belong to each other. No exceptions.
I wonder what it might mean to hold that possibility when we encounter someone we have learned to call Other. Not to excuse harm or erase differences, but to remember that beneath the labels, the fear, and the things that divide us is another human being who, like us, longs to belong.
Seeing more fully does not mean agreeing. It means refusing to stop seeing. Perhaps this is one of the gifts of forgiveness: not that it erases what happened, but that it enlarges the space in which we can hold what happened.
When we look deeply, the sharp edges of our stories can sometimes soften. We may begin to see that the person we have reduced to a label is, like us, carrying wounds, hopes, fears, loves, and a complicated history.
Questions to ponder. Perhaps they might spark a creative response that emerges through journaling, poetry, a SoulCollage® card, etc. Perhaps they are prompts for meditation, prayer and reflection. Trust whatever unfolds for you.
- What am I still holding?
- What needs to be grieved before it can be released?
- Is there something I need to acknowledge, repair, or make right?
- Is there something I need to forgive in another? Or something I need to forgive in myself?
- And what happens when the person I need to encounter is not someone I love, but someone I have learned to call Other?
Sometimes we may not be able to forgive and all we can muster is “I am willing to become willing.”
Maybe that is enough for today. Maybe forgiveness is not a door we force ourselves to walk through. Maybe it is a door we notice has quietly opened.
And perhaps reconciliation begins there, not with returning to what was, but with becoming willing to meet what is before us with a little more openness, a little more compassion, and a little less fear.
Perhaps, like Francis and the Sultan, we discover that sometimes the first step toward peace is simply crossing the line and sitting down together.
Peace and all good ~ Christy