There's been a lot of talk about forgiveness.
Recently, in the media with a certain celebrity. Even with those not directly affected by this person's actions it's been hard on them to fathom the act of forgiving this person. Its just troubling because this is someone we all looked up to. I personally looked up to them.
Y'all know how it feels when your work mentor doesn't live up to expectations. I am here to tell you that I can so relate. People talk a lot about forgiveness and they never talk about the gravity of the offense that's been committed. I can forgive you stepping on my toe or forgetting to acknowledge me for that presentation. Those seem rather trivial and can be forgiven within 2 days max. But really
when I talked to a very spiritual friend of mine I said, "I akin it to someone being responsible for the end of something and since we're keeping it light, let's say, your career, if someone deliberately takes time out of their day to end your career, disparage you, send notes to directors to rid you of your job, de-market you and shred your professional career to bits, how much forgiveness is in your heart for this person?"
How much of it can you possibly muster?
Every time the sermon talks about forgiveness, I ask, well, we need to weigh it obviously. There are some things that can be easily forgiven, some not so much. Feel like asking us to forgive quite so readily is such a huge ask. Maybe ask them not to hurt us. Let's start from that. And then forgiving these people that quite obviously never ask for forgiveness, never apologise. They go on about their lives and seemingly PROSPER. How am I supposed to feel about that? Not the prosper part but just the healing from the dagger lodged in my chest and as I crawl on my good knees to quench my parched thirst just to open some form of social media to distract me from the throbbing pain and there it is, the culprit who caused my pain exceeding in life abundantly and I'm supposed to just forgive them. Wow! That's a huge HUGE ask.
As I watch the news and the social media accounts, and the apologies being offered for this celebrity, I think, that's all well and good, But still. I meditate within...people should not get away with their malicious sadistic actions...we should not preach "forgiveness" as the remedy to this as it allows them to get away with their malicious deeds...it's like a cure all.
And all of a sudden you're the bad person because you're still carrying this hurt in your heart. "you need to forgive so you don't carry this pain in your heart." Perhaps ask the culprit to ask for said forgiveness...that's a start. Perhaps, tell people not to go out of their way to plot evil (form weapons, as the Bible says) against another. Do something more productive with your time, touch grass, adopt/sponsor a child, give that time to charity, donate anonymously, try to help us meet our SDG goals, something that moves this planet forward in a positive way.
Forgiveness - one word with a huge ask.
