On Forgiveness
2024
On Forgiveness is an expanded version of the essay entitled To Err is Human; To Forgive is Human Too, which was published in Friends Journal in January 2024. The following is from the opening paragraph.
Each morning before I begin my days activities, I say a prayer primarily of thanks for all the gifts and blessings I’ve received. However, it also includes the sentence, “Forgive me for all the things I have done in thought, word, and deed, that have hurt or offended others; let them forgive me, let me forgive those who have hurt or offended me, let me forgive myself.” I’ve said this prayer, and consequently this sentence, so often and for such a long time that I now say it by rote without giving much thought to what the words mean for my daily spiritual life. So when my computer calendar informed me that the coming Monday (September 23, 2023) was Yom Kippur, the day that Jewish people are expected to pray to God for forgiveness of their sins, I decided it would be good for me to spend the day thinking about forgiveness, which I did with surprising and unexpected results.
Whenever I begin to think about a spiritual issue, I first turn to the gospels to see what Jesus of Nazareth had to say. My sentence includes four aspects of forgiveness and so it was advice for each that I went seeking. I was surprised to find that the words “forgive” and “forgiveness” do not occur often and that the sayings or stories that were most helpful to me didn’t include those words at all.