Forgiveness/1

Yes, this is your insightful observations of the human psyche. As a philosopher you always  put your finger onto the pulse wellspring of the human spirit. These concepts, ideas feelings are very difficult to put into perspective, let alone words . I loved this when I read it, however as with all your writings it takes thought, contemplation and getting to terms with, though in our soul we know that your observations are entirely correct. I have broken up your piece into 4 sections, as it is easier to understand and read. 

Than you my love you are so very appreciated.

 

Exculpation. There is a prettier term in our language that means much the same thing. That word is absolution. It means, to release from. But if you prefer, forgiveness. The way in which that word is bandied about in religious circles one would think it were an easy thing to do. To forgive at the drop of a hat. To forgive the one that dropped the hat in the first place (presumably yourself) and to forgive the fool that stepped on it once it had been dropped. But well, forgiveness is a gift of grace. As such, it is neither an accomplishment nor yet something that you simply do because it seems like the kind of thing that would be good for you (like eating oatmeal). If forgiveness were an accomplishment you could practice the art of it, starting with little things and working your way up to the kind of stuff that really mattered

 

 But, in point of fact, you can’t practice forgiveness any more so than you can practice dying. It doesn’t work that way. Besides, to forgive someone for a mere trifle such as cutting you off in traffic, for example, is hardly forgiveness, especially not then when the act which is to be allegedly forgiven means nothing to you in the first place. Forgiveness only come over you when it really counts, if at all. Until then, you could, of course, practice forgiving yourself. A good place to start--your penchant for excess scrupulosity. Try forgiving yourself for wanting to forgive yourself, in other words.


Fortunately, this too presents a bit of a problem. You see, that social fiction which identifies itself as you, and that time and again, invariable ends up “sinning” against itself does so precisely because it lacks the perspective that forgiveness actually affords. Naturally, and for this very reason, does it therefore also craves to be forgiven without having any idea as to what this actually means. It cannot accept itself as it is, even then when it recognizes that self-acceptance is fundamental to the experience of forgiveness. Seeing this, our social fiction, or persona, would use forgiveness (which takes circumstances just as they are) as a way of changing itself. Do you see the impossibility inherent in this?


You cannot forgive yourself any more so than you can lose your life in order to save it, or pull yourself up out of a tar pit by lifting yourself up by your own hair. And by now you might be wondering what I am going on about. After all, forgiveness is supposed to be a part of my shtick, right? So why am I telling you that it can’t be done? Because it can’t be, that’s why, and it is high time you were told. Forgiveness, as conventionally understood, is a racket with more strings than are found on the kind you might play tennis with. The racketeers, my fellow clerics, really do need your forgiveness, by the way. As Jesus rightly pointed out to his Father, those that nailed him to a cross knew not what they were doing. They were religious folk, after all. As such they had there collective proboscis where it had no business being, and it was a forgone conclusion that they would end up killing someone.


Don’t think it couldn’t happen to you, either. There are far more effective ways of killing yourself, and or others, than by inflicting bodily harm, you know. But let’s say, hypothetically, that it did happen to you. Let us say, for example, that you kill someone, whether accidentally or deliberately. What would it mean then to forgive yourself for having taken a life? Would it mean the assuaging of understandably horrendous guilt? 

Hardly! To be sorry for something you did is utterly beside the point. You cannot unfry an egg. If you take someone’s life, you have taken it. If you have caused someone uncountable grief, then it stands to reason that you have actually done so. No amount of remorse will change that which is. But now, simply to accept this is not forgiveness either.

This so called acceptance (which is, in fact, a masquerade of fatalistic resignation) too, is an evasion of responsibility on the part of that which grants itself—rightly or wrongly—the power and ability to cause irreparable harm to an other or to itself. On the other hand, to know that you have committed an act from which there is no possibility of escape or pardon, and to know that the act was one of irrevocable consequence, and to then live this truth, and to live with this truth, allowing it to touch you and to transform you, as it will, without any pretense of justification on your part-- to live without the possibility of atonement. That is forgiveness.