The “F” Word

Forgiveness is a word that intrigued me since I was a kid.
I’ve shared this with others, even groups and families, with little response that would indicate a depth of understanding. As I look around, I see people feeling self justified in their positions against others – quite often in a polarity that continues to create divisions and wars between people, undermining the greater values toward peace and security we would wish for the next generation, if not for the entire future of mankind.

Distrust seems at the core of this. A sense that if there is no physical consequence, then someone cannot be forgiven. An eye for an eye. The harshness of the thief loosing a hand. The stoning of the prostitute or adulteress. Why would anyone with good sense interrupt such an execution of justice and pose the idea that the person who’s never missed their mark in life, throw the first stone?

This article may provoke you. Might deepen an understanding – of yourself and of others. I spent 10 years in relative isolation after achieving several goals in my life that left me looking for deeper answers. The “F” word, if you haven’t heard, is powerful.

Have you ever heard a mother tell their 10 year old daughter they did wrong and need to apologize and seen the 10 year old say the words “I’m sorry” with a hollow, shameful look on her face – lacking understanding of what they just said?

Although I have heard this word used time and time again – I had doubt of how well it was understood
Although I examined it with a number of academics, scholars, theologians, counselors and therapists – even police officers and attorneys over the years – I had never achieved an understanding of the term and how to do it.

My standard is high. I need to understand at the emotion and spiritual level. There’s a problem with language that can provide definitions but leave people hanging in terms of understanding and feeling complete in the understanding of a topic, a term or a concept. This can be observed. Consider how we use the word “friend”. We all know there are different types of friends. So if you use the word, the context of the word in a particular circumstance narrows the deeper meaning to the two parties involved, let’s say in this example, between two people.

If the two people have similar values and perspectives, they may have no difference between the word in how it defines their relationship. Each may have a similar understanding of the expectations they may have of each other.

However, if one party is from, for matter of examination here, let’s say one party is from a small town, a rural farming community. The other party grew up in a well-to-do educated and business minded home in a metropolitan area.

Each party could use the term friendship but their own definition may be entirely different from each others’. In rural communities friends may rely on each other for practical support. In metropolitan settings, the word friend may imply more of a casual social alignment.

So you can see how the word friend has a wide spectrum or gradation of meanings. On the written page it is dead. But in life, it is brought to life three dimensionally. In your own life, you may be living literally in the definitions brought forward from your childhood, potentially being blindsided by the views and definitions that others bring from their experience. Often it is our disappointments or disagreements with others that expose these “words” for deeper examination.

Some statements made in sacred texts allude to seeming contradictions around concepts and vocabulary terms. These are viewed by some eastern world types as coen’s rather than statements with inherent contradiction. These statements, coens rather than literal rule statements, are meant lead someone to deeper understanding of themself and of life, and of others. The simpleton will feel confused and reject the statement, or one who presents these statements as illogical, practically useless, or most darkly, dismissed as rubbish or trash. Whereas others who are looking deeper, perhaps exploring the spiritual pathways, maybe looking to pioneer around the old patterns that have plagued mankind throughout recorded history – those people may engage and examine how in the now that seemingly contractidictory components of life, be it words or an apparent polarity, good versus evil, for example could coexist – as they have in fact since the beginning of recorded history.

The simple resolution is that the spiritual and physical coexist in the now. When we allow our mind to collapse our larger nature into overly simplified vocabulary terms and rules, we quickly reduce ourselves to a one dimensional being that denies the fullness of our being. I’ll speak to this more in the future.

Now with the respect to the “F” word, forgiveness, how does this apply to you? Do you know how to forgive others? Do you know how to forgive yourself?

You might begin with a self examination. Does the very word seem to evoke an emotion in you?

Does it lead you into a realm of examining justice and injustice in the world, in your community, or with others in your life. You might say to yourself how much you “hate” people that break certain laws or rules. If that’s what happens in you, then this could well indicate an unforgiving side of yourself that if you felt safe exploring, could deepen and enrich your life. There may be certain transgressions that you’ve encountered that are haunting and troubling to you.

Forgiveness like the terms “love” or “fear”, may actually be a lifelong examination for some people.

Sometimes people feel that others, maybe those who have violated rules, must be publicly condemned, shamed and punished for others to see as examples of what happens to people who break the codes of society. Only after such execution of justice, in their minds, can they allow the issue to be put to rest – or so they believe, until it resurfaces and they again find themself riddled with a sense of disharmony and injustice in the world.

This is a strong pattern across people. Now who am I to say. I’m just conveying what I’ve observed here.

But I will say there are another group of people who react differently to rule breakers. Some of these people may say to themselves, that rule breakers must have really been hurt in their life to do that, to have learned that behavior or they had nothing in their life that would have meant more than to act out like that and to do “wrong”.

Now, just like the person who condemns the rule breaker, this more understanding view of the rule breaker may be oversimplifying the person and circumstance, actually filing in the blanks with their own experience, rather than allowing the characters in the scenario to actually reveal themselves, their own motives and yearnings, or perhaps their habitual dark side which could host a hostile spirit or hardened heart which truly poses a threat to the ordinary, unsuspecting person.

My own experience with forgiveness is that it is ultimately a process in life – not a one time event where an epiphany occurs and suddenly when the sun goes down at night the old fears or patterns that once haunted me are colored with bright snowflakes or sunshine.

Someone who hurt me when I was a little boy may have induced a fear and reactive emotion into my body and into my life. Why would I ever forgive them? For me, when I understood the carnage of holding that blame inside me was just continuing the feed the fire of rage in me – that ultimately separated me from others – when I eventually associated the consequences of this in my life, in the now, in perpetuating poor relations with others because of the rage I was holding onto. When I was able to let that go and only then, was I able to truly enjoy the sense of freedom that is ultimately the goal and outcome of forgiveness.

But it doesn’t stop there. At least for me. This is another entry point of self examination. Just how did I fail to operate in my life in my own state of being “unforgiven”? Who did I betray and how in my less informed or less inspired way of living my life? Are there others out there who may have misunderstood me for whatever reason? When I was operating from fear and rage and anger, did they take it personally? Did they just push me away rather than taking the time to examine this with me? Perhaps that was all they could tolerate in their own endeavor to survive on the physical plane at that juncture in their life?

These matters do take time and patience to unfold.

If you’re new to your spiritual quest … well, I’m Roach, Mark Roach, wishing you all the best.