the art of forgiveness

there's a place in fredericton i frequent called the green. it's on the banks of the st. john river, which runs through the city, dividing the north and the south sides. a few days ago, i happened to notice on the bench beside me a note from ron to patsy. you'll notice it says "forgive me," "come home," "i love you."

ron also adds, "i need you."

on my next visit to the green i sat on a different bench, finding a similar, roughly written note. remembering the one from the other day, i decided to investigate the other benches. what follows are a series of 4 more pictures from 4 other benches...take a look...

i don't know what ron has done, what mess and hurt and pain and distrust he has caused. i don't know if patsy has forgiven him. maybe some who know the story would say ron doesn't deserve forgiveness. maybe patsy hates him for what he did. and maybe ron hates himself doesn't even believe he deserves forgiveness. it's hard to say. i'm not so much interested in how ron and patsy got to this point, but i would be curious to know where they stand today. did patsy show mercy and forgive? maybe she's not there yet, because let's be honest, knowing you need to doesn't make it any easier. and what about has ron? has he forgiven himself?

juxtaposed with my all too poignant discovery of these notes was my reading of the shack this week--a brilliant book i got for my birthday from suzie-k. people like eugene peterson (the writer of the message bible translation) are saying "this book has the potential to do for our generation what john bunyan's pilgrim's progress did for his. it's that good!" i don't want to spoil your reading of it--and while there are some passages that are 'different' to swallow (you'll see what i mean when you read it)--the overall taste is very intellectually and spiritually palatable and pleasing. without taking away from the book, but adding to this entry, there is a passage that smacks of what this world needs and needs to do more of...which is to forgive and be forgiven...i've abbreviated the section for length, and so you can't discern entirely what's happening...

"to forgive [...] is [...] to release [...] forgiveness is not about forgetting [...] it's about letting go of another person's throat [...] 

so what then? i just forgive [...] and everything is okay, and we become buddies?" [...] 

forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver [...] to release you from something that will eat you alive, that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly [...] take on the nature that finds more power in love and forgiveness than hate [...] 

so forgiveness does not require me to pretend what he did never happened? [...] it feels like if i forgive this guy he gets off free. how do i excuse what he did? [...] 

forgiveness does not excuse anything [...] the last thing this man is, is free [...] what he did was terrible [...] and anger is the right response to something that is so wrong. but don't let the anger and pain and loss you feel prevent you from forgiving him and removing your hands from around his neck [...] you may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you realize that you have forgiven completely. and then one day you will pray for his wholeness and give him over to me so that my love will burn from his life every vestige of corruption [...]"

ron's notes on the park benches are pretty rough. they kind of speak to the mess that has no doubt been created by whatever he has done. but ron has asked for forgiveness. that doesn't always happen in this day and age. or, asking for forgiveness is abused by the one forgiven who turns around and does the same thing over and over again. it's impossible to say what side of the fence--or park bench--ron's on. and it's impossible to know if patsy has released him, thereby releasing herself from the hurt he has caused her. i'd like to think she has, but maybe she's not there yet...


forgiveness is a creative work that's often messy, but the end result is a work of art in my life. think of paint colours being mixed on a palette. or a lump of wet, grey clay that hasn't been molded. it's not art in the sense of what you'd see at the louvre, or the met, or the guggenheim. it's art in the sense of the beautiful release and possible redemption it creates. forgiveness creates an opportunity to let go and move on...there's no promise that the process itself is beautiful--it can be an agonizing and exhausting process actually--but the end result always is beautiful, especially when your aesthetic sense becomes one of emotional release instead of intellectual retention...in other words, when you make the decision to let it go instead of hang on to it.


art is defined as the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. looked at from this vantage point, ron's asking for forgiveness looks like he produced an opportunity for patsy to forgive him. the reality is that the beautiful expression will ultimately come from patsy and be extended to ron. when i forgive the one who wrongs me, this is no ordinary significance, but is that quality of creation that allows me to put it out there and walk away free. the art of forgiveness is not the messy asking by the one who did the wrong. the art of forgiveness is that the forgiver just created a beautiful and appealing and no insignificant opportunity for freedom.


so...let it go. not because it didn't hurt, or because you are able to forget the details or the pain, or because you believe it won't happen again. let it go because you will begin to see differently. and watch the work of art that's wrought by releasing your strangle hold on that person and the pain in your past...


let it go.

grace-us sakes!

"and I will pour out a spirit of grace..." (zechariah 12:10, nlt).

the other morning i woke with an expression running through my head...grace us with Your presence...

it was sunday when i had this thought. on facebook and twitter i was getting people's updates about being excited to go to church, people happy it was sunday, people looking forward to the day, and so on. in church circles, people often quote verses about being glad to go into the house of the Lord, about one day with the Lord being better than a thousand elsewhere, etc., and songs get sung at the start of service inviting God to meet with us, like "welcome into this place." when we pray in a service, we invite God's presence to fill and saturate and inundate the building and our being.

in effect, we're asking God to grace us with His presence. now, make no mistake, He needs no invitation since He's everywhere present and nowhere absent, but in our limited way of expressing ourselves, we ask God to honour us with His presence...which He does...over and over again...gracious sakes, He's generous with His grace :-)

but this figure of speech struck me in a more profound way this morning, because really, it's what God does over and over again...He literally graces us with His presence. not just gracing us with His presence by merely and predictably showing up in a service or when we need Him, but by making grace available to us.

the way i see it, it's like He stands with a big bucket full of grace and it washes over us time and time again. time and time again He gives us what we don't deserve. the bible says "He gives more grace" (james 4:6). He actually graces us when we meet with Him! think about it. He applies His grace to our lives like a covering...not so that we can keep doing the same stupid things over and over again and expect to be forgiven, thereby taking His grace for granted and abusing it, but so that we'll be kept from doing the same things over and over again, all the while knowing that if we slip, He'll be there to catch us. so, while His grace is provided to us and poured out on us--just to be clear--it's not provisional in that it's a license to do whatever we want.

there's a song--which i could have googled to verify and to ensure accuracy, because c'mon, of course the internet is accurate :-)--but the verse ends with "grace flows down and covers me." it's title might even be "grace flows down," i think. and that's the point. grace flows down and covers. and one more time i'm graced by His presence.

"be in this place." pt. 2: on being and becoming

"it's my life. it's now or never. i ain't gonna live forever. i just want to live while i'm alive. it's my life. don't you forget. it's my life. it never ends."


"i fly with the stars in the skies. i am no longer trying to survive. i believe that life is a prize, but to live doesn't mean you're alive."


perhaps you can identify these 2 songs that are separated by a bit more than a decade and a couple generations...if you can't it's no big deal...i just want to parse a couple sentences--or at the very least point them out to get you thinking and hopefully get you to weigh in on 'em...can you guess which ones?


i'll give you a minute to read back through...60 59 58 57 56 55 54 53 52 51 50 49 48 47 46 45 44 43 42 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1...


got 'em?


i just want to live while i'm alive and to live doesn't mean you're alive.


i just want to live while i'm alive implies that being alive relates to existence, while wanting to live relates to wanting to experience life. so, i just want to experience life while i'm existing.


to live doesn't mean you're alive implies that just because you're in a state of existence in no way guarantees that you're experiencing life to its fullest. so, to be existing doesn't mean you're experiencing.


so much for not being redundant with this idea saying the same thing, said differently :-) at any rate, what both songs capture and convey is that living and being alive are existence and experience oriented. "no kidding," you're thinking...one says, in essence, i want to experience while i'm existing. the other says, existing doesn't mean you're experiencing.


eleanor roosevelt said, "life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. one must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." in other words, existence and experience go hand in hand. life was meant to be lived. life was meant to be. it was meant for being. oprah had at least one good thing worth repeating, and that's "live your best life." that kinda sums up what i've said so far...thanks, oprah :-) 


there's a related idea going on here, which i've already written about in pt. 1, but here's a brief nod to part 2. the idea is that of being and becoming, and the forces of process and progress. all of these words illustrate existence and experience. the above songs could have easily been written as "i just wanna become while i am being," or "to be doesn't mean you're becoming."

new brunswick's latest initiative for encouraging population growth is the "be...in this place" campaign. the population growth secretariat's website portal provides information on immigrating and settling, living, working, studying, and doing business in new brunswick, boasting that nb is a place where you can be fulfilled, be successful, and explore your passions...where you can be yourself, celebrate your culture, and experience other cultures...where you can be part of a vibrant community and a growing economy. bottom line, it's an invitation to live, exist, and be...it's an invitation to be alive, to experience, to become...

the way i see it, life, living, and being alive are about more than just 'making the best of a situation,' or just 'dealing with the cards you've been handed.' it's not about just surviving, settling, or being resigned to a state of stationary stagnance. it's about embracing challenge as an opportunity to grow. it's about being active. it's about being dynamic, not static. it's about getting your game face on or setting your face like a flint--whatever expression you want to use--and throwing yourself into becoming your best you...your most authentic you...your most fulfilled, successful, explorative, celebratory, experiential, vibrant, growing you...your most alive you...


life is your invitation to be. to exist. it's your invitation to become. to experience. how alive you are depends on how you throw yourself into living. and how you live depends on how alive you want to be. consider life your invitation to be in this place...this place called life...

just live it.

ps: i just started sartre's being and nothingness. expect a part 3 once i work my way through the over 800 pages of dense, yet delightfully literary philosophy :-)