Forgiveness

Over the past few days I've been reflecting upon the idea of forgiveness.  A dear friend of mine and I were recently talking about a challenge they are facing in their life.  After some discussion on this life lesson, and an effort to seek the cause beliefs, I asked them if they could forgive the person in question.

They reflected on what I had posed to them and then truthfully admitted that they did not believe that they had a clear image of what forgiveness is (a testament to their honesty and our friendship).  I thought about this and realized that such ideas are so personal, so subjective, and so abstract in some ways that it is easy to assume that people have a comparible understanding.

And so I felt inspired to try and see if I could capture a more accessible description of forgiveness.  For you see forgiveness is as important to this experience as dying is; in some ways forgiveness can be likened to the letting go that is required of us when our time has come to make transition.  I have penned a poem, quite a bit longer than my typical verse, that is likely a sketchy effort to capture what forgiveness is coming to mean to me.  And as for whether it helps my friend or not remains to be seen.  But little harm can come of this effort regardless.

Know the Flow as you go

Forgiveness


When they hurt us they weren't at their best.
We could offer the gift in our mind.
They're greater than sum of their errors.
They themselves also wounded in time.

Perhaps frailer than the wind that blows,
across oceans and shores that now dance.
Humanity in mistakes will show.
But the strongest forgive and entrance.

Forgiveness happens inside of us.
Much like pain in feet as we hike.
We don't have to forgive behaviour,
only the person, regardless of like.

Like the beauty of countryside seen,
What is behaviour without to me?
An eye for an eye, insanity.
Fleeting revenge will never set free

Lowering ourselves like falling fruit,
feeling guilty for what we thought wrong.
Lashing out to shout of this hurt,
As if such mode were graceful bird song.

Were I to cry for fruit so fallen,
for but a moment of need within,
Nothing wrong would there be in this sharing,
Any longer is living in sin.

It can be hard to forgive, sometimes
easier to let be and ignore.
Passive stream of trickled misery,
Realized of challenge now set in yore.

Like the path not once have I trodden,
forgiveness can feel so unknown.
Easier in blame and projection,
than to consider the seeds that I've sewn.

Ironically selfish in action,
forgiving matters more to those,
who've been wounded than done the wounding,
Letting go is the truth that knows.

Would you squeeze amidst the thorns,
of the wounds and upsets of the rose?
Would you become a servant of self,
be slave to the scent in your nose?

Take back your power to live, now
flourish beyond offending descent.
Empower yourself in transcendence,
Cast aside victim's cloth and repent.

We are here in this life to make,
mistakes unrelated to aim,
to get lost in the vagaries of moments,
but not losing ourselves in blame.

Human is to do what we do,
make mistakes and forgive and be kind,
even in the face of the terrible,
letting go lest we live as the blind.

Forgiveness is more than a season,
or path of beginning and end.
It is maintenance of spiritual Truth,
Less the falling of leaf, more a trend.