In My Lifetime

Porpoise Driven Life

Here's something we can all get behind. I've been looking for a new spiritual path, something that's inclusive and uplifting. What could be more uplifting than this? I do invite your comments. This made a huge impression on me.

Thoughts on Forgiveness

I ran into a friend this week who asked me to talk with her about forgiveness.  What does it mean?  How do we do it?  Even if I can forgive someone else, I can't for give myself?  Yes, yes, we know God has forgiven us but how DO we go about forgiving ourselves for our shortcomings? 
Well first of all forgiveness is not something we do for other people, we do it for us. We do it so that we can move on from painful experiences.  We do it because we want to repair relationships. We do it because we instinctively know the spiritual axiom embedded in the concept that Jesus was trying to get across to us when he quoted the beginning words of the Shema.... "You shall love the lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your might..." and then he added, "and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." So there are three levels of who we're loving here... God, ourselves, others.  And what does this have to do with forgiveness you say? 

See I think the two are inextricably linked.  If you love me and I do something to hurt your feelings, you are quicker to forgive me.  We know this.  I get the benefit of the doubt.  That's why we're charged to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  We can presume that our enemies have done us wrong, hurt us, attacked us.... so isn't it interesting that we're not told to forgive them... we're told to love them. 

But what about loving ourselves?  Well... I don't think we can love anyone more than we love ourselves.  If we think we're doing that, we're fooling ourselves.  On the other hand the way I learn to love AND forgive myself is because that's how I practice doing loving and forgiving so that one day I'll actually be able to look at myself and say, "I love you and I forgive you for being imperfect even on the days when you don't try your hardest."  For a long time I thought that forgiveness was tied to the person's motivation.  If I assessed them as being sincere or having tried to do their best... then I would give them this wonderful grace of my forgiveness when they screwed up.  But if I thought they were being less than honest or not trying their best... well that was another story.  This is where I realized that I can't give someone else more love or forgiveness or anything else than I can give myself. 

For years I was harder on myself than anyone else because, afterall, I knew I hadn't done my best, I knew I'd had questionable motives, I knew my ego was involved... in whatever it was that I was beating myself for.  In that mindset forgiveness was available only for those people and institutions that I deemed worthy.  But at some point I had to deal with the fact that God and other people were only too willing to forgive me when I screwed up... even though some of my friends and family and certainly God herself knew about my ego, my mixed motives, my lack of enthusiasm. 

My sponsor Betty used to say to me, "It's important to remember that most people are doing the best they can most of the time."  It was her way of saying to me that it's not my place to judge whether people are doing their best before I give my love and forgiveness.  Not because they need it, because I need to give it.

So here's where the rubber meets the road.... if I love you I'm usually willing to forgive pretty much anything no matter how badly you've screwed up.  When I see you in pain and remorse for what you've done struggling with your "demons," compassion wells up inside me and love pours out of me washing away the hurt and pain and anger.  That's forgiveness. 

But why is it vital that I learn to forgive myself?  Because that is the ONLY unconditional love we will ever truly feel.... love for ourselves.  And the evidence of that is whether we are willing to forgive ourselves or our warts, and misdeeds, and bad thoughts, and hateful actions.  Because I believe when Jesus added the "second great commandment" he was saying something much deeper than we often read it.  He is saying we must love our neighbor as ourselves.  But if we want to love our neighbor unconditionally, the way God loves us, then we have to learn to love ourselves in that way.   I have come to believe that what Jesus was saying was less about our neighbor and more about loving ourselves.... not loving our ego, our accomplishments, our bank account.... but really loving ourselves in our brokenness and pain.

I've learned how to love myself by thinking of myself as ".... my own best friend.  How would I treat my very best friend in this situation?"  One of the sickest people I ever knew taught me this spiritual axiom.  So when I find myself in a place where I'm just beating myself to a pulp I think "... how would I treat Karen, or Lillian, or Susan, or Mary..." or any other person I love if they screwed up in JUST the same way.  And I just hang on to that image of them in my mind and try to feel the love and compassion that pours out of me to them when they have screwed up.

I forgive those whom I love.  I learn to love by forgiving.  I feel God's grace in love and forgiveness of me when I give that to others or to myself.  Love your neighbor as your self.  Forgive your enemies, pray for those who do you wrong.... it's not about them, it's about me.