"There but for the Grace of God" - Forgiving the Unforgiveable

Because of the nature of my studies at University I'm continually being exposed to information about the some of the worst aspects of the human condition. Wide spread violence and exploitation, child abuse, political indifference, and planet destroying corporate greed just to name a few. Like most people I find myself horrified, despairing and teetering on the edge of hopelessness on a regular basis. Unlike most people I lack the luxury of turning to an episode of the simpsons and tuning out. These are prescribed readings, and read them I must. Sometimes I get angry, and sometimes I start judging the perpetrators of these crimes against decency, these deceivers and users who commit unspeakable acts.

In those moments it is often difficult to find grace. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I wish to not experience those feelings of horror, I would be worried if I did not feel this way. Being shocked and appalled by dreadful crimes, feeling empathy and concern for the victims, is how I know I'm human, how I know that grace is alive inside me. It's the judgment that takes grace from me. To be angry at the commision of these acts is healthy, but to condemn the perpetrators is for me to commmit an act of violence (if only in my mind) in return. I become in that moment a perpetrator of lovelessness.

Please don't think I'm taking the righteous high ground here. Believe me when I say that I do this all the time. I do it driving down the road when someone cuts me off on the roundabout, or at the supermarket when someone blocks the aisle. I do it when I hear the news, or witness another politician trying to obscure the facts behind political double speak. I do it every time I pick up a newspaper and see the bias and manipulation in today's media. It seems that to judge is merely part of the human condition. The trick, I think, is in what I do next. Sometimes I just keep judging, which seems to feed on itself and engorges until I finally notice that I'm feeling absolutely miserable. Sometimes, the fortunate times, I remember the old saying - "there but for the grace of God go I".

I notice that my judgement is always righteous, always containing somewhere within it the idea that there is no way I would commit such a crime, or do something so stupid, or act with such carelessness towards another. Of course the truth is quite the opposite. I'm guilty of carelessness and stupidity on an almost daily basis, and I've many acts in my past of which I'm not proud - some of them criminal. I've been hurt by others, and I've hurt others in turn. To err is human, or so the saying goes.

I've also noticed that it is always from a place of hurt that I hurt others. It is when I feel myself as powerless, victimised, threatened and unloved that I lash out at those around me. I believe that this is always the case, that hurt people, HURT people. So when I witness these crimes of indifference and viloence I find myself faced with a choice. Do I judge and condemn, or do recognise that the perpetrator is in pain and needing the experience of grace, of love and compassion? Or I could ask it another way. When I commit acts of lovelessness, do I wish to be judged and condemned, or would I like others to recognise that I'm in pain and in need of grace and love?

To Forgive, Divine.

Forgiveness is a word often used and often misunderstood. Forgiveness is not 'letting someone off the hook', and is not achieved by taking the moral high ground. If we tell ourselves that we are forgiving someone, but inside we are still full of anger and judgment, then we are actually fooling ourselves and committing what 'a course in miracles' calls a double condemnation. First we condemn them with our judgement about how bad they are, and then we condemn them again, through putting ourselves in a position of moral superiority by 'forgiving' them.

True forgiveness comes in the recognition that they are just like us. The understanding that they are acting from pain and trauma, just as we sometimes do. True forgiveness is the realisation that this person has lost touch with the truth of who they are, and become caught in an illusion of sinfulness, powerlessness and unworthiness. True forgiveness is looking past the actions of the wounded ego to the god self inside and offering them the love they need to heal. Most of all, true forgiveness is rediscovering who we are, learning to look with the eyes of grace. In true forgiveness we are transformed, because in seeing through the illusions of their pain ridden mind, we learn to see the illusions of our own. the opporunity in forgiveness is the opportunity to say 'Thank you for giving me the chance to rediscover grace, in a world beset by the illusion of sin".

The reality is that we all do bad things, and it doesn't matter how severe or mild they are. The act of murder is in fact no more or less violent than the act of a harsh and unloving remark, because they are sourced in exactly the same place. All acts of lovelessness comes from a disconnection between us and grace. Every crime against another is a crime against life, and every act stems from the belief that what we are is something less than the child of a loving God. Every judgement is a condemnation to hell, because its intent is to say that the other person is somehow unworthy of love, of grace, of forgiveness.

But what about those who commit the truly unforgiveable crimes? Those who abuse children, destroy entire species, commit murder on a massive scale? how can there crimes be no worse, no less forgiveable than ours? How indeed. Well, these people didn't get to where they are by themselves. The child abuser was themselves abused, which means that someone else dit it to them, and a whole bunch of other people failed to protect them by turning a blind eye, and an entire society failed to heal them when the early warnings signs showed up. It means that hundreds of people chose to allow their suffering to continue, chose to take care of themselves with total indifference to the plight of another.

Similarly, the CEO who's company destroyed a precious habitat did not do it alone. He was trained and conditioned towards greed, fear and carelessness from an early age. He was lauded and applauded for his ability to compete, to be stronger than others and indifferent to their pain. His shareholders demanded of him that he produce ever greater profits so that they might make money without having to work for it. His society required him to be succesful in order that he might be loved and rewarded. No one is born a child abuser, or a conqueror or a serial killer. They are made that way by a world full of lovelessness and the illusion of sin. They are shaped and moulded by the family and the society they came into with 360 degree innocence and trust. They are created - by US.

So when I find myself looking for someone else to blame, some other soul to condemn for the pain and the blood of this world, I have a choice to make. Do I add one more blow to the lovelessness of the world, one more burden of pain for them to bear on my behalf, or do take this opportunity to bring love and healing. Do I take revenge, or do I offer forgiveness. Do I convince myself that I could never be that person, or do I recognise that given the same life experience as them, I would be the one standing condemned, by me. There but for the grace of God, go I.

My ultimate choice is this, do I create even more darkness and perpetuate this cycle of suffering, or ask grace to show me how I might become the light that ends it. We'll, sometimes I do the former, and sometimes the latter. When I remember, when I stop for a moment and seek in myself the understanding and compassion that I would hope others would offer me, I discover that there truly is no crime greater than another, no unforgiveable sin, for they are all the one thing, the acting out of the terrible pain that comes when we believe that we are separate from grace. Revenge, punishment and condemnation are not the solution. They are what caused the problem. In offering others forgiveness, in choosing to see the grace that is who who they truly are, I give them the opportunity to forgive those thigns that were done to them, and myself the chance to learn who I truly am.

In the Kahuna teachings of the Hawaiian people there is a very old tradition. When faced with a person who has committed great harm, the shaman/healer would  walk up to them and say simply this, over and over again. "I'm sorry, please forgive me".

Now that's grace.