"As long as you can deal with evil by some other means than forgiveness, you will never experience the real meaning of evil and sin. You will keep projecting it over there, fearing it over there and attacking it over there, instead of “gazing” on it within yourself and “weeping” over it within all of us (see Zechariah 12:10).
The longer you gaze, the more you will see your own complicity in and profit from the sin of others, even if it is the satisfaction of feeling you are on higher moral ground than other people.
Forgiveness is probably the only human action that demands three new “seeings” at the same time:
I must see God in the other who has offended me,
I must access God in myself to forgive major grievances, and
I must meet God in a very new way that is larger than as an enforcer or a judge."
Adapted from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, p. 194
2010 Center for Action and Contemplation, PO Box 12464, Albuquerque, NM 87195-2464 (505)242-9588
www.cacradicalgrace.org
1 comment:
Somebody wrote me today and said, "you cannot will yourself to forgive but you can be open to become willing."
I think I agree. To me this means I must be patient and merciful with others when I go unforgiven because of my woundings or wrongness. And forgive as I am able. I do try to move into a space of mercy for myself and them. And I wait.
Post a Comment