Forgiveness

We recently discussed the topic of forgiveness in one of Nathan’s sermons.[minister of my UU Fellowship] This is a topic constantly on people’s minds in my Pagan abuse survivors’ group. We have often asked if forgiveness is valid for Pagans. I believe it is, but not for the same reasons as right wing Christianity. Of course this is my take on it, and this does not represent all Pagans by any means. I think we first need to define what forgiveness is, and to do that we need to define what it is not. Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. People often confuse the two things.

There is no just and loving Deity that I can conceive of who would expect us to allow ourselves to continue to be damaged in some way by another human being. We sometimes have to separate ourselves from someone in order to be healthy and happy. Sometimes reconciliation is not possible because the person has died and this is no longer possible. In a perfect world, the person who has done the wrong against us would admit their wrongdoing and recognize the need for our forgiveness. Unfortunately this is not a perfect world. Forgiveness in my view means deciding to let go of the baggage of feeling anger, betrayal and hatred for the wrongdoer, whether or not that person realizes the need to be forgiven. To me this is not equivalent to saying that it alright that they committed the wrong against you.

There are a number of very logical reasons for forgiveness, regardless of what faith path you follow. The most logical reason in my view to forgive is that when we invest energy, time and emotions in holding on to hurt we are in effect still holding on to the person who wronged us. We are insisting on allowing their presence in our lives, rather like a ghost, even when they are not physically in our lives any more. We are in effect carrying this person around on our backs all the times as a useless burden. If we have gotten them out of our physical lives, why continue to allow them to take up residence in our psyche? Our time and energy would be better spent on thinking about and doing things which nurture us.

Another logical reason to forgive is that like attracts like. If what we hold in our minds is negative, then we will continue to attract negativity into our lives. If we concentrate on the positive, more things that are positive will come to us. Why put out more negative energy into the universe? Putting more negative energy into the universe is like the dairy farm upstream – what goes into the river upstream ends up being part of our spiritual drinking water downstream. Since we all drink from the same spiritual well in the universe, this will affect us as much as the person we continue to harbor ill feelings against.

Finally, if we decide not to forgive the person who wronged us, this will not change anything that happened. Holding onto the emotional baggage will not change one single thing about the damage that has already been done.

By utilizing the Buddhist concept of non-attachment and refusing to allow ourselves to be attached forever to something negative in our past, we allow ourselves to heal and grow as a person. This allows us to become the healthy and happy person we were meant to be – free from excess baggage of holding on to hurt.

Namaste and Blessed Be,