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The journey toward our healing starts with unconditional love and
forgiveness - unconditional love and forgiveness we offer first to
ourselves. These two are so closely interwoven that it is impossible to
conceive of unconditional love without forgiveness and vice versa. As
God loves utterly and forgives utterly, so we are to offer love and
forgiveness. Jesus in his reply to the Pharisees stated: "Love the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second
is like it; Love your neighbour as yourself." (Matthew 22: 37-39) In
the prayer he gave to his friends, and in his subsequent explanation
Jesus is quoted as saying: "Forgive us our debts as we forgive others
... if you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Parent
will forgive you ... but if you do not forgive others, neither will your
Parent forgive your transgressions."
There is no doubt God desires that we are all healed and whole, yet
self-forgiveness and self-love are either neglected or put in the "too
hard" basket. Worse still, many of us have never heard this portion of
the Gospel. Yet from our earliest days we have been subjected to moral
and spiritual directions which have taught us what was "good" and what
was "bad"; what was "expected of us" and what was "unacceptable or
inexcusable conduct". In fact, we are bent over by layer upon
subsequent layer of shame and guilt, imposed on us by family, society,
various spiritual decrees and regulations, by those who employ us and
those with whom we work. Our greatest need is to see ourselves with the
eyes of God, as people who are loved and are forgiven totally. We may
need to turn to those skilled in the ministry of healing of memories to
help unlock all those doors behind which we have repressed pain,
anxiety, bitterness and failures together with the memories of those
kindnesses we neglected, and all those acts of conciliation we refused.
As Jungian John Sanford notes, "We are all of us wounded people. The is
no such thing as a person who is free from illness, incompleteness, and
injury to his or her personality. Some of us can simply hide from our
woundedness better than others. When we can no longer hide from our
woundedness, we are ready for individuation." As those who have not yet
forgiven nor loved themselves we remain unhealed people. What is our
reaction when we are required by Jesus to love and forgive others as we
love and forgive ourselves, if we have not yet made peace with
ourselves? How can we express unconditional forgiveness and love to
others when we have not yet experienced it in our own lives?
Fear - the opposite of love - is manifested in many forms: hatred,
jealousy, pride, resentment, anger, greed, prejudice, hostility, conceit
and various "-ism" words. Each and every one of these manifestations of
fear corrodes our personality, our spiritual walk, our attitudes and our
physical bodies. Changes in blood pressure, indigestion, ulcerated
stomachs, nervous breakdowns and coronary attacks can often be traced
back to lack of unconditional love. Unconditional love frees us from
all bonds and restrictions - we rejoice at the successes of others, and
mourn over the plight of many. We are so filled with love that life
bubbles over. Those who are yet to know this experience of
unconditional love often close in on themselves, creating a universe of
which they are the center. They are fearful and jealous of their
reputation, they begrudge the successes of others, they become neurotic
and sometimes paranoid that there is a conspiracy somewhere directed
against them. Their fear, hatred and jealousy eat away at their peace
of mind, at their relationship with the Creator, and at their physical
bodies. They become consumed by fear, riddled by the worms of
nightmares of their own making. Their lives are punctuated by
explosions of anger, and as such are immature reminders of childhood.
Whether these outbursts are used as a release of tension or frustration,
or whether they are used as a weapon, they are still only tools of
manipulation. James 4: 1-2 speaks of these outbursts.
God continues to love all of creation, passionately, unconditionally.
For God so loved the world that ...
Why shouldn't those who have wronged us be punished, made to bear the
cost of their actions/words? We all have a deep-seated conviction that
"someone ought to pay." Jesus spoke of this "eye for an eye" attitude -
the letter of the law - as being superceded by the requirements of
Love. How can things ever be made right? How can those words/actions
be wiped from the memories and lives of the victims and of others?
Revenge merely sets one on the same level as the one who has wronged
you, forgiveness moves you both closer to God. From forgiveness it is
a tiny step to accept others as beloved children of God, and to love
them as such.
Jesus demonstrated that God condemns no person; therefore why do we?
Why do we refuse forgiveness when for our own healing, wholeness and
peace of mind we need to be forgiven and to offer forgiveness?
"Forgiveness means that we have asked for a miracle: the ability to see
through the mistakes that someone has made to the truth that lies in all
our hearts" - Marianne Williamson, Illuminata. Forgiveness is seeing
others as loved as equally as we are by God, and as justified, forgiven
and reconciled by the blood of Jesus as we are.
Forgiveness removes our rights to avenge and to revenge. It prevents us
from attacking others. Forgiveness costs - often it seems to produce
more pain than the original wounding. It involves accepting voluntarily
the harm or evil that has been inflicted on oneself, and letting the
other person go free. In love, we bear the cost of those sins against
us. Both human and divine forgiveness are substitutional. The cross
was the price God paid to forgive us. We could never pay the debt of
sin we owe to God, so God paid it for us. By our forgiveness of others
we pay their debt to us.
Forgiveness does not mean we suppress our anger - forgiveness means we
give up our right to anger. Alone we cannot do this, it is far too
hard. Every person is one for whom Christ died, and one whom God regards
as a perfect, loving child. We need to recognize that each and every
one of us is an immortal soul. Our actions and reactions will become
part of the immortal record of our lives. We need to turn to God and
ask for strength to tread this path, so that we may offer forgiveness,
acceptance and love to others. Only God knows and understands others,
so rather than trying to analyze their motives, we need only to be
accepting and forgiving. In Col 3: 12-14 Paul speaks of this. God has
never refused forgiveness to any person, nor turned away from any.
There can be no peace without forgiveness. Forgiveness does not erase
the past, nor can forgiveness change it. Instead forgiveness removes
the power of the past to cause pain or anger; it provides permanent
healing of those memories. Forgiveness empties the bitterness from our
lives. Bitterness left to fester will erode our attitudes, our
rationale and motives and our relationship with God. To be able to
accept God's forgiveness we must be free in ourselves to offer
forgiveness to others. We must be prepared to offer this forgiveness
not only once, but should a memory of the offence be renewed we must
offer forgiveness once again - continually. To offer forgiveness
continually is to live forgiveness by accepting the rough and tumble of
life, by turning disappointments into opportunities. While we still may
not like the person(s), or may find a clash of lifestyle or philosophy
to be a bit too much to say 'friend', we at least reach out to find the
common ground and see if friendship, or at least the ability to work and
live together, develops.
C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory speaks of the unconditional love we
are asked to demonstrate:
It is by forgiveness that we dissolve the bonds that tie us to those we
forgive, as well as to our old thought patterns and beliefs. Without
the willingness to forgive we perpetuate the pain, the abuse and the
memories of those past traumas continuing in our present time. We have
no need to confront that person(s) to offer forgiveness. We can ask God
to wrap them in our forgiveness and love, or we can choose to visualize
sending a cloud or blanket of love and forgiveness to them and having it
enfold them. Those who use a pipe in prayer will also know how to send
such blessings. There is no barrier to prevent us extending our
forgiveness, save our own willfulness. Perhaps we don't choose to
forgive today, or let go of those painful memories just yet. We want to
hug them a little longer to our breasts, to feel the thorns again pierce
our flesh. Why? Why in the name of the Risen Christ do we Christians
choose this option? Christ has borne the cost of forgiveness, why must
we punish ourselves by refusing forgiveness? Why do we choose to
continue to live as the victims of rape, of verbal or emotional abuse,
and of rejection when in an instant we can set ourselves and the
perpetrators free? Do we not believe we deserve the peace and joy such
forgiveness will secure? What is the fear which will not permit us to
live as healed, whole, radiant people?
As a society, as a nation, as part of all creation we need communally to
seek forgiveness from God. While a society cannot be ordered to don
sackcloth en masse, we can gather publicly and commit to the change, and
the Christians of our nations can (as individuals and as the Church)
confess our sins before God and another (or many others) and seek God's
forgiveness. Our society and our nations have practiced racism; we have
been willing to destroy the mountains of food we have overproduced while
millions in the world starve; we have not spoken out when we have seen
the rights, the homes and the lives of others destroyed; we have created
barriers of class, gender and sexuality. As members of our societies
and our nations we must be prepared to seek forgiveness from those whom
we wronged, and try to make restitution. Sometimes restitution is not
possible, but our act of confession and sorrow allows the growth of
roots of healing. And with this healing comes reconciliation.
Reconciliation is not easily achieved on either side, for each of us has
been damaged by our own acts and by the acts of others. We have built
defensive walls to protect us from further damage. God will need our
permission to start demolishing these walls. But by the gift of
unconditional love and forgiveness Jesus has moved to restore our
relationship with God and our relationship with each other.
For this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of
many for the forgiveness of sins.
Sometimes I believe we forget the price God paid so that we could be
forgiven, so that no trace of those sins would ever remain to convict us
in God's sight. Jesus was physically put to death, his body broken,
spilled out for us. When we read the Ten Commandments and Jesus'
commission for each of us, we cannot but note that God's directs our
concern outward to others. It is our neighbours, our families, our
enemies, and the untapped fields waiting to be reaped for Christ which
are the focus of God's attention. When we share the Eucharist it is not
a solitary meal, for even if we are celebrating it by ourselves, we do
so within the entire universal family of believers, past, present and
future. God's love and forgiveness pour out, as Christ's blood was
poured out, for all. And that includes all from whom we have withheld
our forgiveness. We can never be sure of the hidden compulsions which
cause people to strike out, so how can we judge their words and actions
justly? God does know, and God forgives.
Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will
not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.
We are called to be a peculiar people, to view life differently and to
live it differently. In some ways our walk may seem topsy-turvy to
others; our values have changed from self to service. In Matthew 5:
21 - 24 are recorded Jesus' words which challenged his hearers'
previous thoughts about their relationship to each other and to God.
Jesus not only overturned the tables at the Temple, but he overturned
our responses to one another even to this day. When, after the war,
Corrie ten Boom met a former guard who had been responsible for the
torment of women in the concentration camp at Ravensbruck, try as she
could, her hand would not extend to touch his ... until she put the
matter in God's hands, and forgave. She could then clasp his hand and
bless him. Topsy-turvy it could seem.
The words whose echoes still resound in the ether, continuing to
challenge us to repudiate the reasons we use to justify withholding
unconditional love and forgiveness, are those which Jesus spoke at
Calvary:
Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.
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Illuminata : A Return to Prayer by Marianne Williamson by C.S. Lewis
by Stephanie Dowrick
Other Writings By Rev. Vera I. Bourne:
The Power of Prayer: God at the Coalface
Also In This Issue:
Dear God, Please Forgive Me for Not Being Gay
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