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.
