Forgiveness is...

Forgiveness is…

You will have to forgive me for using yet another Lord of the Rings situation to explain things, but I’m afraid this may be one of the two or three most important ideas in that book. And yet, I use it to throw it away. But please, dear reader, stick with me and we shall come out into the light, just as Bilbo did, as he escaped from the Misty Mountains.

First, we have to remember the discovery of the One Ring in the bowels of the mountain, as told in the novel, The Hobbit. Bilbo had just won the riddle game foisted upon him by Gollum, who was buying time while he considered that very nasty looking sword Bilbo wielded. If Bilbo won, Gollum promised to show him the way out of the mountain. And Bilbo did win, almost by accident, so Gollum prepared to show him out, it seems, when he actually went to retrieve his magic ring of invisibility. He let out a soul-piercing scream, when he discovered it missing. At this point, Bilbo felt a twinge of pity for this lost soul, with whom it seemed he had so much in common. This part of the story ends when Gollum dashes to the exit, followed by the now invisible Bilbo, who stops just as he sees Gollum, and behind him, the exit to the out of doors. At that moment “A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart; a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment…” Gollum sat between Bilbo and freedom, and yet Bilbo could not slay the miserable creature, and escaped through invisibility and a mighty leap.

Now, in Lord of the Rings, Gandalf explains this situation to Frodo, as Frodo is fretting over his predicament by possessing the One Ring:

‘But this is terrible!’ cried Frodo. Far worse than the worst I imagined from your hints and warnings. O Gandalf, best of friends, what am I to do? For now I am really afraid. What am I to do? What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature when he had a chance!”

Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy; not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the ring so. With Pity.

And there is a third act to this story, near the middle of the saga of the Ring. Frodo and Samwise meet Gollum on the wastelands to the east of the Anduin River. Both know Gollum is intent on stealing the One Ring, and Sam wants to kill him to prevent numerous foreseeable problems (which, of course, all came true). But Frodo remembered Gandalf’s warning about Bilbo and Pity, and he says “For now that I see him, I do pity him.”

See how pity persists in the memories across three different characters, and about 50 years of storytelling. What an amazing feat of memory. But what does all that have to do with forgiveness? My point, and the reason I drew it out to such lengths, is that in fact, it is just the opposite of forgiveness in many ways. Pity persists in memory. Forgiveness erases things from memory. Now, I know that the expression “forgive and forget” appears nowhere in the Protestant Bible, but Augustine’s theology of memory, in his Confessions, can connect forgiveness with forgetfulness. It is God and the Spirit on which memory is based, and God has a perfectly good will. Nothing of vengeance, ire, spite, ill will, malice, rancor, or feuding can be held in God’s memory. It’s like trying to make dry noodles stick to a magnet. They do not stick. They are corrosive to the mind, and our willfully holding onto them will do no good whatsoever.

But what about pity? Pity is not one of those nasty, wriggly words which feel like soggy noodles in the fingers, and which fall away and soil the floor, just at the right place to have your kid sister slip and fall. Spite is slimy. Malice is awash with ooze. Rancor drips phlegm. None of them are welcome in the mind of God. Forgiveness is. In fact, forgiveness is a gatekeeper given by God to weed out all the words which hang out with zombies. You remember to pity, because that which we pity may often be that which we find wretched.

But what about forgiveness. Are we not to remember what we forgave? No, because there is no accounting involved in forgiveness. Recall Matthew 18:21 “Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” I think it is fair to say Jesus was picking a big number just for effect. I trust he meant one is to forgive, for however many times the slight occurs.

You may even go so far as to save yourself a lot of moral bookkeeping, if you never bother to take the slight in the first place.

Forgive the slights of others before coming before the Lord for forgiveness. Our watchword for the week.

Written by Bruce Marold.

Some Reflections on Forgiveness

In reflecting on what forgiveness is, two assurances from God come to my mind:  first, God's promise to us of new life in and through Jesus Christ, and then the Scripture verse in 1 John 1:9, which says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."(NIV)


If we try to follow the example of Jesus, who always sought to do His Father's will rather than His own, we have the foundation for being in a right relationship with God, with ourselves, and with other people. If we are mindful of our sins--sin being anything that separates us from God--and regularly confess them to God, we can be freed from our own self-centeredness, and also from attitudes and actions that can damage both ourselves and others.  We have the assurance that God will forgive us if we do these things.  This assurance of God's unfathomable love for us will also help us to forgive ourselves for our sins and failures, so that we can accept God's forgiveness and experience the abundance God desires for us.


Our ability to forgive other people who have hurt us is another aspect of forgiveness and it is also a necessary part of our life in Christ. This is sometimes a very difficult task.  I found this quote from Barbara Crafton, which I think is very helpful in addressing our difficulty with forgiveness:  "We begin to forgive by deciding, not by feeling. It is a theological decision, not one guided by the human limitations we must ordinarily take into consideration when we decide about many other things, like which school to attend or which car to buy. We make the decision to forgive knowing that we lack the power to carry it out, and so we make it asking for that power to be given to us as God wills. Our feelings don’t lead us to forgiveness; they usually lead us in the opposite direction." (Barbara Crafton, "Forgiveness:  What It Is and What It Isn't")


As Crafton goes on to confirm, God knows that we are vulnerable and that deep wounds may be impossible to forget. Our ability to forgive others can sometimes involve a long process. But if we ask for God's help,through Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit, God will enable us to forgive those who have caused us pain. And of course, we are helped by recalling the example of Jesus himself, who asked God to forgive the very people who sentenced him to death on a cross.


During this Lenten season, as we ponder the life, passion, death,and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us ask God for a deeper experience of God's forgiveness and for a greater capacity to forgive ourselves and others. And let us remember that the freedom of forgiveness is what God wants for us.

Pulp

It was nothing, really.  Just a little wood pulp.  But it caused a stink I hadn't anticipated on an otherwise inauspicious Monday.  One minute we were sitting down to spaghetti alla gricia and the next, we were moving storage boxes out of the putrid water rising in the basement.

I'm sure it wasn't my fault.  Sure, I've been known to flush a paper towel or two down the toilet.  And maybe some of the organic kitty litter.  But that couldn't really be the culprit.  Could it?

I've done some really boneheaded things in my life.  It's really hard for me to stay in the present, so I'm often lost in thought and make errors all the time.  Like the time I was so focused on what to pack for vacation that I tripped over the curb and broke my knee.  Or the time that I was thinking about getting home in time for the sweet Mother's Day celebration my family had planned for me but ended up getting pulled over for speeding.  Or the time that I totally burned a pan because I sat down to write while the duck was in the oven.  You get the picture.

I'm a klutz.  I'm forgetful.  But I've been really trying lately.  Please forgive me.

Like this post.  I began it several days ago and it was an unfinished draft when I, instead of saving it as a draft, accidentally pushed the publish button before it was finished--ooops!

So I think maybe forgiveness has something to do with acceptance.  When I accept something just as it is, not as I want it to be, I can let go of my expectations and be at peace with myself and others.  That doesn't mean that hateful, disgusting acts of violence are acceptable.  But rather I can come to an understanding of the fallibility of all humanity and I can choose to act out of a place of love, of drawing closer in relationship, rather than react in fear or anger or dissolution.

So I can forgive whomever flushed too much toilet paper.  I can receive the truth of what is, and then I can let go of my anger at having to clean up several inches of putrid water in the basement.  I can let the fresh water wash away my unrest.  And then I can take away the toilet paper and dispense it per usage in small amounts :)

Forgiving and Forgiven

(http://izquotes.com/author/thomas-merton )

To my mind, there is a close relationship between forgiving and being forgiven. And it's not only because Jesus taught us to pray, "Forgive us, as we forgive others."  When I am aware of how frequently and how profoundly I need forgiveness, it is ever so much easier to forgive others.  The absolute reality is that we are all sinners.  How odd that pride is so powerful it can cause me to forget that I am, while noticing that everyone else is.  The other absolute reality is that God rejoices to forgive me.  In forgiving from out of my own imperfection, I share a tiny reflection of God's joy.

Forgiveness is...

Forgiveness is…

(Today's celebrity guest writer is Mithril the Cat, seen sleeping in the photo below. He lives with his human and five feline siblings in Bethlehem. He enjoys greeting his human at the door, has no modesty when he sleeps, and works best after a light lunch of tuna.) 

For cats, forgiveness means an undisturbed sleep, a grateful mewl at dinnertime, regardless of how late it may be, and a lick of the face, regardless of how many times we are shushed from the office desk or how many times we are disturbed from a warm nesting against the calf or the shoulder in the dark of the night. We are simple souls with kind memories for human souls.

Forgiveness for humans is complicated, and yet more rewarding. Witness Shakespeare’s words:

When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,

And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,

And pray, and sing and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,

Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;

And take upon’s the mystery of things,

As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll hear out.

King Lear – Act V, Scene III.

This is Lear speaking to his daughter, Cordelia, whom he mightily wronged, and of whom he is asking forgiveness. Cordelia was the youngest of three sisters, who did not flatter her father, and who was thereby disinherited and sent off to be married in France. Lear and Cordelia are prisoners, yet they joke as they are lead off to prison, very shortly to be executed.

St. Paul often finds himself in prison, and yet he never expresses great anger against his captors. In Acts 16:39, the jailers even apologized to Paul and Silas, but only after they learned that Paul was a citizen of Rome. The most moving act of forgiveness in the Bible is when Joseph, Jacob’s favorite son, forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery:

“Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, ‘Send everyone away from me.’ So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it…  ‘And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.’” (Genesis 45:1-2, 5, NRSV)

There is an even more telling speech of forgiveness in Thomas Mann’s great novel, Joseph and his Brothers, (Everyman’s Library, 2005). The brothers speak:

“There they were, and they fell down before him and said, ‘Here we are, servants of the God of your gather, and we are your slaves. As your brother has told you, we ask that you for give us our evil deed and not repay us according to your power. As you forgave us while Jacob was alive, so forgive us now after his death.”           

‘But brothers, dear old brothers,’ he replied, bowing to them with arms spread wide, ‘what are you saying! You speak exactly as if you feared me and wanted me to forgive you. Am I as God? In the land below, it is said, I am as Pharaoh, and thought he is called god, he is but a dear, poor thing. But in asking for my forgiveness, you have not, it appears, really understood the whole story we are in. I do not scold you for that. One can very easily be in a story without understanding it…If it is a question of pardon among us human beings, then I am the one who should beg it of you, for you had to play the evildoers so that everything might turn out this way…Don’t make me laugh! For a man who, contrary to all justice and reason, uses power simply because he has it – one can only laugh at him… Sleep in peace’” (Joseph the Provider, Volume IV, Part Seven, “Restoration,” 1491).

What is it to ask for forgiveness of a partner, a friend, an acquaintance, a sibling, for even a stranger? What are the odds that the perceived slight is not based on a misunderstanding. What are the odds that the slight has not even been felt by that whom you sensed that you have wronged. The feeling of having wronged someone and the feeling of having been wronged is corrosive. It warps our perceptions and diverts us from right thinking. It is like an acid which twists our gut into unpleasant feelings and boils up bile to sear our throats. And it is all for what? The object of your disquiet is not God, so why should you fear any unforgiving reply. You know God will welcome your plea for forgiveness with welcoming love, unconditionally. There is but one catch.

God’s love is unconditional, but your ability to receive it is not. How can we stand before God with pleas of forgiveness when we have unresolved issues with our fellows? We are cynical about a hurt going back 50 years or more. Will we not approach God with a trace of that same cynicism? Even worse, we are remorseful for how we left things with those we held dear, as they slipped away with the feeling that we withheld love from them. Forgiving is an equal opportunity grace. It is just as incumbent on us to forgive ourselves as it is to forgive other, and to graciously accept the forgiveness of others.

You need to learn simplicity and mirth from Lear and from cats. Forgive always and hold no grudges against accidental slights. Forgiveness is that warm poultice which eases the sores of misguided ire.  Cats take the world as it comes, entertaining ourselves with little ambitions to reach that high ledge, or commandeer that new box. But we harbor no ill will to person or housemate, and we will be faithful companions to our keepers and our kin. 

A Contrite Heart

Dictionary.com gives the definition of "contrite" as, "caused by showing sincere remorse" or "filled with a sense of guilt and a desire for atonement." John Donne, the 17th century English poet and priest, captures that sentiment perfectly in his poem "A Hymn to God the Father." It is found in the Hymnal 1982, set to the chorale So giebst du nun. The tune was originally published in Dresden in 1695 and later harmonized by J. S. Bach. The poem's text may be found here.

A Hymn to God the Father

BY JOHN DONNE

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,

         Which was my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,

         And do run still, though still I do deplore?

                When thou hast done, thou hast not done,

                        For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won

         Others to sin, and made my sin their door?

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun

         A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score?

                When thou hast done, thou hast not done,

                        For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun

         My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;

But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son

         Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;

                And, having done that, thou hast done;

                        I fear no more.

Create in us a new heart...

Create in us a new heart …

            St. Augustine of Hippo, North Africa (13 November 354 – 28 August 430) is, by the

reckoning of many, the greatest Christian theologian of the ancient period.

            We know more of his life than of other ancient Christian theologians, thanks to his autobiography, Confessions. This moving book, which has changed the direction of many people’s lives, tells us that young Augustine was a rapscallion. He freely admits it.

Augustine writes (Confessions, translated by F. J. Sheed, Kindle Edition):

Your law, O Lord, punishes theft; and this law is so written in the hearts of men. … Yet I chose to steal, and not because want drove me to it – unless a want of justice and contempt for it an excess of iniquity. For I stole things which I already had in plenty and of better quality. Nor had I any desire to enjoy the things I stole, but only the stealing of them and the sin. There was a pear tree near our vineyard, heavy with fruit, but fruit that was not particularly tempting either to look at or to taste. A group of young blackguards, and I among them, went out to knock down the pears and carry them off late one night, for it was our bad habit to carry on our games in the streets till very late. We carried off an immense load of pears, not to eat-for we barely tasted them before throwing them to the hogs. Our only pleasure in doing it was that it was forbidden. Such was my heart, O God, such was my heart…” Page 28

This is the most famous example of Augustine’s pranks, as he grew up in North Africa, in a town not far from the large city of Carthage. His mother, Monnica, was a Christian, but his father, who spent heavily to have Augustine trained in Carthage, was not. Augustine was brilliant in Latin rhetoric, and he was soon teaching it himself, in his late teens. He became enamored of Manicheanism, but dismissed it when he met a high ranking priest, and discovered his understanding was superficial. Throughout Augustine’s teens and twenties, he resisted his mother’s entreaties to become Christian. Monnica even travelled to Rome to be with her son as he took up teaching boys in the capital.

Augustine became a disciple of Bishop St. Ambrose, who was a governor for the civil bureaucracy in Milan as well as becoming a Christian leader. Augustine studied Platonic philosophy, in its later form, and became strongly influenced by it, just as most Christian theologians before him. But the illumination of the faith escaped him until he was 31 years of age.

At this point in his life, he was at a tipping point, being drawn to his mother’s faith, but, as he writes:

And You stood in the secret places of my soul, O Lord, in the harshness of Your mercy redoubling the scourges of fear and shame lest I should give way again and that small slight tie which remained should not be broken but should grow again to full strength and bind me closer than before. For I kept saying within myself, “Let it be now, let it be now,” and by the mere words I had begun to move towards the resolution, I almost made it, yet I did not quite make it….Those trifles of all trifles, and vanities of vanities, my one-time mistresses, held me back, plucking at my garment of flesh and murmuring softly: ‘Are you sending us away?’ Page 156.

Finally, in early middle age, in a garden in Milan, he heard what seemed like the sing-song voice of a boy saying “Take and read, take and read.” Augustine opened the Bible at random and his eyes fell on a passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences. (Romans 13:13 – 14). Augustine describes his change of heart “I had no wish to read further, and no need. For in that instant, with the very ending of the sentence, it was as though a light of utter confidence shone in all my heart, and all the darkness of uncertainty vanished away.”

            Augustine was baptized shortly thereafter, to his mother’s great joy. Augustine became a bishop in North Africa and the leading theologian of the church. His Confessions became known as one long prayer to God. He summarizes the conversion of his heart with this:

Who shall grant me to rest in Thee? By whose gift shalt Thou enter into my heart and fill it so compellingly that I shall turn no more to my sins but embrace Thee, my only good? What art Thou to me? Have mercy, that I may tell. What rather am I to Thee, that Thou shouldst demand my love and if I do not love Thee be angry and threaten such great woes? Surely not to love Thee is already a great woe. For Thy mercies’ sake, O Lord my God, tell me what Thou art to me. Say unto my soul, I am Thy salvation. So speak that I may hear, Lord, my heart is listening; open it that it may hear Thee say to my soul I am Thy salvation. Hearing that word, let me come in haste to lay hold upon Thee. Hide not Thy face from me. Let me see Thy face even if I die, lest I die with longing to see it. The house of my soul is too small to receive Thee: let it be enlarged by Thee.

Let this be the evidence you need that the experience of the Lord, running deep and running large, will not fade from a heart so enlarged, and that the experience is so life changing that many things, once seemingly heavy, now appear light.

-- Bruce Marold 

Do You See?

In Annie Dillard’s book, the Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, the narrator tells a story of how, though many fingers were pointing to a frog, she had great difficulty seeing it, camouflaged as it was.  And how drawing horses on her cousin’s ranch, though difficult for her, was second nature to the children who see the horses all the time.  She proceeds to describe how humanity, as complex as it is, sees only about 30 percent of the light, only a fraction of what simple, single-celled organisms can perceive: they do not have the mechanisms to filter out that information.  Humanity is so highly developed, so complex, that we no longer have the ability to see clearly.

This Lent I’ve decided to turn off Netflix, turn off Facebook, turn off my phone at home.  I’m so preoccupied that I can’t see the things close me.  I’m burdened by not only my the narrowness of my human body, my tunnel vision, but also my desire to be disconnected.  Some days it's just easier to be status update or snarky quip.  But Lent offers me an opportunity for me to take a look at my heart.  And it's not a pretty, Instagrammed picture. 

My sins are a blindfold and I want to see.
God, help me to be vulnerable.

I’m a sinner for wanting more than I have.  

God, help me to see the gifts in my life and be grateful.

I’m a sinner for trying to be who I am not.  

God, help me to see myself as the person you created me to be.

I’m a sinner for asking the world to bend to my will.  

God, help me to see my place in the world, and live it gracefully.

I’m a sinner for being too complicated to see the light clearly.  

God, help me to see how I can live more simply.

Ashes... to go?

Ashes are an ancient symbol of penitence or mourning.  The practice of beginning the 40-day period of preparation leading up to Easter with the imposition of palm ashes on one's head goes at least as far back as the 8th century, if not farther, and their use as outward markers of penitence or mourning stretches back into the time of the Old Testament. In some ways, it's kind of like having one's name written on the blackboard for misbehaving in school. That cross-shaped, black smudge that flakes off onto our glasses is kind of hard to miss. It's a sign or a mark that we don’t always act very well. By the same turn, they don’t mean that the teacher is going to call our parents or send us to the principal’s office. They’re there to remind us that messing up is part of what it means to be human, and that we can ask God for help when we do. 

For those who choose to receive ashes today, whether as part of a church service or from a clergyperson standing on a street corner, those ashes are an outward sign of an inward grace. At the least, they communicate to the other people around us that there is something more to our interior lives than they might have thought. What those ashes are not is some sort of temporary disfigurement designed to tell the world that we’ve checked off the, “I went to church” box just for today. They speak to something more: our status as a sinner worthy of redemption, our mortal nature, and God’s gracious gift of everlasting life.  As St. Paul words it, “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see - we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:10, NRSV). With that smudge, we are marked as people who are willing to at least consider the possibilities those things contain, for today and beyond. They are for all of us, no matter what our status within the community might be. What’s more, they are infinitely rich, and their reach into the core of who we are is far deeper than any sort of praise or rebuke from others can ever be. 

This universality and richness are, I think, what we discover when we risk going out onto the street corners in front of our lovely stone buildings and sharing what we have to offer. My colleagues who offer "Ashes to Go" often report back that they continue that particular experiment because it means a great deal to the people who approach them for ashes and prayers. Amid the busy-ness of everyday life, it is a gift to actually have the time and space to mark the beginning of Lent.  Whether they "get ashed" on train platforms, street corners, or anywhere else, they send the message that there is something more than just the ordinary hustle and bustle and noise of the world around them.  

Reconciliation begins with acknowledging the "something more." Even if it's just for a few minutes, stopping to bask in God's presence is enough to get started.  

-- Amy Spagna+ 

Lights in the Darkness, 2015

Lent begins this week, and with it comes a reboot for this blog. "Lights in the Darkness" began last year as a project of Trinity Episcopal Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Through the lenses of Scripture and popular culture, the team of writers - mostly Trinity parishioners and staff - examined some of the common themes which seem to be more obvious during this season than in others. While they didn't reach many definite conclusions, the common thread through all 40 days was that being in relationship with God requires our deliberate attention and maybe even some elbow grease.

Most of the team is back for a repeat engagement this year. Along with several celebrity guests, we will be working with the theme of reconciliation. What is forgiveness? What does it mean to forgive myself and others? How are all things possible with God's mercy? 

Martin L. Smith, in his book titled Reconcilation (Lanham, Maryland: Cowley, 1985), notes that, "We need not be surprised that people learn more about [reconciliation] through personal testimony than through public discussion. The best way to discover what Christians receive in [it] is to find someone willing to share their personal experience of it" (page 1).

We hope you will find these reflections helpful in framing your own experience of reconciliation - whatever that word means to you - and invite you to join us in this season of renewing our faith. If you are reading this online, feel free to respond to postings using the comments button at the bottom of each. Please keep the discussion polite and on point; comments which don't meet this basic standard will be deleted. If you're reading this on email, feel free to reply. And if you're comfortable with it, we can add your thoughts to this page as well.

We'll be back with the first posting on Wednesday.  Happy reading!

The Rev. Amy Spagna, Editor-in-Chief