Consequences of Forgiving
Being a Conduit of Good
Here is a challenge to anyone reading this: Do you have the courage to live your life in such a way that you deliberately pattern your actions each day to be a conduit of good for others? If you are steeped in bitterness and resentment, it is difficult to live for others because of the pain within. Try to forgive those who seem to be holding you back. They are not really holding you back because at any given moment, it is your choice whether or not to become a forgiving person. As you commit to becoming a forgiving person, your life takes on such amazing meaning. Only those who have tried what I am describing here will understand the importance of this post.
Robert
On the Attempted Destruction of Beauty
I stand today before the eighth wonder of the Western world: Michelangelo’s Pieta at the Basilica of San Pietro in Rome. It is a marvel of the human spirit, how one man could have such vision and talent to bring forth such beauty from rock. Michelangelo used to say that he was only freeing each statue from its prison within the marble. It just had to come out.
As I stand before this magnificent work of art, I am reminded that in 1972 Laszlo Toth took a hammer to this masterpiece and tried to destroy it, knocking off the Virgin’s arm, chipping her eye and nose.
Mr. Toth was intent on destroying beauty.
I wonder, as I look at this breathtaking work, if too many injustices are perpetrated in the name of destroying beauty. Some partners denigrate the other…..just because. Some attack others…..just because. Some deface homes and walls and works of art……just because.
You are a person. Therefore, you are a work of art. You are a person of beauty. Some may wish to deface you—to hurt your heart—just because.
The master artists worked diligently to restore the Virgin’s features according to the artist’s original expectations (using detailed photos to accomplish the task).
You, too, should consider using the artistic tools of forgiveness when others try to hurt you, to deface you, or even to destroy you.
Forgiving those who try to hurt your beauty is even better than the tools used to reconstruct the Pieta. You see, forgiveness as a tool does not just restore you to your previous state. Forgiving others has a way of making you even more beautiful than you were before.
Robert
On Reversing Pessimism
When we are treated unjustly by others, we slowly can become more apathetic about everything. Consider this quotation from G.K. Chesterton on the matter:
“It matters very little whether a man is discontented in the name of pessimism or progress, if his discontent does in fact paralyse his power of appreciating what he has got.”
Forgiveness can reverse the apathy and the pessimism and increase our appreciation of situations and other people.
Robert
Forgiveness as Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
We all quest after these three qualities of life: truth, goodness, and beauty. Too often, those who hurt us are not standing in the truth of who we are, they are not behaving in a morally good way toward us, and the outcome surely is not beautiful.
Those who hurt us leave a mess behind: a distortion of truth, goodness, and beauty.
Truth tells us who we are as persons. We are all special, unique, and irreplaceable. All persons have inherent worth.
Goodness conforms to truth. When we realize that all persons are special and possess inherent worth, our response of goodness should include fairness toward all as well as kindness, respect, generosity, and love.
Beauty is defined by goodness. If we are to respond to others with fairness, kindness, respect, generosity, and love, then we have to express this well from the heart.
So, how do we clean up the mess left behind by those who are cruel?
We should try to forgive with truth, goodness, and beauty. How do we do this?
In truth, we have to start forgiveness by understanding it clearly. Even when someone is cruel to us, the truth is that this person is special, unique, and irreplaceable. Even if this person has hurt us, he/she has inherent worth.
In goodness, even when someone is cruel to us, the challenge of goodness compels us to respond with fairness, kindness, respect, generosity, and love. Yes, even toward those who are cruel to us.
In beauty, even when someone is cruel to us, the challenge of beauty is to transform our hearts so that all of the goodness is not forced but is given willingly as a gift to that person.
As we apply truth, goodness, and beauty to those who have acted unfairly toward us, we not only help to clean up the mess left behind but also we are doing our part to make the world a more beautiful place.
Robert
“Mommy, how do lady bugs protect themselves?”
Today I was on an airplane from Atlanta, Georgia to Madison, Wisconsin. Two rows in back of me were a mother and her precocious and inquisitive four-year-old daughter, who asked, “Mommy, how do lady bugs protect themselves?” I doubt the mother ever heard a question like that. I never have.
It was such a tenderhearted question. Here is the little girl in an airplane and she is concerned about bugs and their protection. Because children are so vulnerable, I wonder if they are particularly sensitive to this issue of protection.
We should all be like children and have this sensitivity. Every person on the planet is fragile in a certain way and therefore needs protection.
Forgiveness is a form of protection. It can protect the dignity of the wrongdoer. It can protect the emotional health of the one harmed. Forgiveness can protect a relationship that is now at-risk. Forgiveness can even protect communities from on-going anger that can pervade neighborhoods, separate people, and leave a blight that depresses economies. After all, communities continually in contention do not receive the tourist dollars and governments often turn away, ever if subtly, from such communities with high rates of violence.
We are one-up on the lady bugs. They do not know of forgiveness. We surely must not forget about forgiveness as we go about our busy lives. We need the protection.
Robert
