FORGIVENESS

What is forgiveness? Is it possible to forgive someone who has done wrong? They must still live with their actions. Even if they change, their minds have been altered by what transpired.

Forgiveness does not grant absolution. Consequences remain and lead to their own consequences.

It does not assume the perpetrator will change the bad habit or trait that led to the infraction.

It does not imply giving free rein in the future for whatever actions my occur.

It does not remove responsibility.

Forgiveness may still be spoken, for it gives relief to the offender and the receiver. It can be an uplifting and healing balm. If forgiveness is withheld, anger flares, self-pity depresses, and hatred rears its head. These repercussions are deeply self-destructive.

People forgive to assuage their own guilt and reduce their own stress. In this way, two people are not at odds with one another. They can live their lives without having to ignore each other or the sad event in question. Otherwise, without getting past the stress point, both are living with an emotional burden. This leads to health consequences. Best to forgive, or least say so and then try to think so.

And how do we do that? Take a lesson from the One who can only forgive. For that One, there is no other option.

God, inhabiting a spiritual universe, has no experience with emotion. This ethereal existence, like God, inherent and effortlessly forgives. Nothing can ever go wrong in the 100% spiritual universe. Blame and responsibility are unknown and irrelevant there. “There” is, ultimately, everywhere. Forgiveness is a natural state of being.

Because this forgiveness permeates the universe that God has always experienced, this same quality has suffused the material universe that God created. In the earthly life, we get away with an amazing number of things for which we should suffer. We may call it “luck,” but the world is naturally forgiving because of what it is modeled after.

Creating a material universe our of nothing will use the nothingness as a model for the immutable rues of the physical universe. Before the earthly worlds, there was only the spiritual nothingness, wherein all exists as already having been forgiven. In the Heavenly realm, everything is born forgiven, and no other actions are needed. Just as the inherent truth of the spiritual is that all is what it is, and is, therefore, forgiven without thought or feeling or comment or their equivalents, so must forgiveness flow naturally in the universe we inhabit.

Feelings are a natural but not necessarily understandable (or, too often, desirable) outcome of having created a physical universe with mortal beings who must contend and compromise with each other on a regular basis. God does not become angry or upset with transgressors. These are unknown qualities in a being rooted in pure harmony and without limitation.

God witnesses and accepts. Because God exists in a paradigm of truth and only truth. God’s acceptance is the inherent reaction to existing eternally and infinitely in the Heavenly realm. Negativity cannot be part of a 100% spiritual being that completely occupies this greater universe. If God appears to be angry in our world, it is only because that is how things are filtered from the ethereal to the material.

The only way to be in perfect harmony is to accept others, even with all the flaws and deficiencies. Acceptance is forgiveness. This relieves tension in the insulted as well as the insulter.

God cannot be God and exist in a state of tension. God always accepts truth. Truth is, therefore, automatically forgiven by God, because it is absolutely accepted. It is not an action by the Deity. It is just Its very being, being Itself. By accepting, which for God is just there because God IS God, forgiveness remains. It never left.

ACCEPTANCE  —  IS   —  FORGIVENESS.

Forgiveness by God is neither bestowed nor granted. It just IS. Once again, the sinner is not off the hook. The sinner must still live with the sin and how that affects his nature and perceptions. The sinner is compelled to unburden herself or try to survive with that burden.  This is not easy to live with, for it turns into stress.

Being forgiven is part of forgiving oneself. This leads to accepting oneself. The path is to become comfortable with one’s own self-understanding and self-esteem.

For God, all is truth. There is nothing that is false, just non-existent. “Nothing” is not what a “thing” is. It is something; that something is its truth. God accepts this truth, which is all truth. There is no subjective aspect to truth.

Subjectivity, however, is a defining feature of mortal and material human beings in our finite and physical world. Along with all that, we are governed by right and wrong, good and evil, allowed and rejected. The definitions and applications of these concepts drive us a little batty. They are inconsistently used throughout history and culture. They lead to hatred, intolerance, and war. We must deal with so much.

Our response is to be able to consciously bequeath and receive forgiveness. For ourselves and for those we know, acceptance is the happy path. It takes the little stone out of the shoe, permitting us to walk comfortably. This acceptance is forgiveness.