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.