forgiveness is a funny thing

Regardless of religion, forgiveness is an important part of being a healthy human being. People weren't made to store up life times of hurt and offense. We can survive such horrors, but the living afterwards can only be called life if we leave the survivor's camps and build something new. I could never accept a religion that ignored the need for forgiveness. We hurt people. We do it more often than we ever like, and it is not all their fault or just poor circumstance. We are going to need forgiveness. And so are they.

It is always different in practice than in theory largely, I think, because we talk about forgiveness so cheaply like it is a makeup we can apply in the morning if we have a zit making an appearance. It is a choice that goes so much deeper. And more.

Because it is rarely enough to make the choice once.

Even once per incident. At some point, somebody is going to hurt you, probably for a long period of time and you won't get to know when to expect it to be over. It is perhaps the hardest thing I have ever attempted to do, this forgiveness thing, when someone is still hurting you to keep forgiving them every day... every time you are reminded of that something. Too often I have acted like things should not hurt if forgiveness is there. I wish.

It is not an anesthetic. It is accepted vulnerability couched in frequently misunderstood strength. It makes no sense. I guess it is the endurance test of love. Can it really endure all things? How patient can it be? There is a balance because forgiveness is not devaluing yourself and it is not ignoring wrongs. I think it is freedom.

To heal.

To go forward.

To live.

And living hurts. It requires the full spectrum of emotions because there will be terrible-no-good-very-bad-days and really freaking fantastic ones. Only human beings get to live through both, and you cannot shut out the bad. It's not a privilege you get unless you trade in your freedoms. That is what impresses me about Christianity. To see Jesus on the cross, barely alive, dying someone else's death...and still breathing forgiveness...even though they aren't even done with him yet. He doesn't wait. And it doesn't make any sense. But I think this is because I cannot yet comprehend a love like that.

yellow

I have reached a point in my belief in Christianity and faith in God where I have to admit that it's not what it used to be. I still believe the same core things, but the externals are changing, well, have been changing for awhile. I am only now able to attempt to see what they might become. I was brought up on a hot and contradictory mixture of fiery pentecostalism and timid reformed presbyterianism (if I may coin the terms) and both of those juxtaposed the deep New Age of my father's house. It wasn't long before the passion of the pentecostals became my own. I wanted to be radical. I thought I could change the world if I tried hard enough, was righteous enough or something.

High standards are my specialty. I have grace enough for everyone but me. But you can't make a life out of it and that has become my test: Can I build a life on this? Unreachable goals will either be abandoned or else they will destroy some part of you. I had to leave them eventually. I needed healing and I would not find it by always striving for the impossible. I do not want to be a radical Christian anymore. While that sounds horrible, I will stand by it. It is the radicals that my coworkers abhor for their arrogance, hypocrisy, and other flaws. There must be a better way. Can quiet lives shout? How radical was Jesus?

He paid his taxes, went to weddings, drank wine and ate dinner with sinners, he told stories... Yes, he cleansed the temple, calmed storms, and put the pharisees in their place. Still, his life seems markedly different than our modern zealots. In our effort to make him relevant, to communicate how extraordinary he was, we have made him something he never really was and still is not. And I find that comforting because I can't be that anymore. I can love God. I can love people. When I think about it, those were the two greatest commandments anyway. Those are strong enough to build my life on.

I don't want to change the world. There are 6 billion people on this planet and I wont meet them all. Besides, the Bible doesn't preach revolution and revival the way many of today's churches do. It prophesies hardship and a worsening of times...animosity for God and everything, everyone, associated. And we will be known by our love, because that is something that can't be faked, wont go out of style, and will always be needed. Most people don't need to know that they aren't perfect (even when they act like it), they need to know that they are loved.