Why not start the custom we call the New Year being forgiven—free of any trace of the wounds and limitations we are all trailing due to the lives we have led? We can start very small. Sitting quietly at a quiet time or place, we can practice saying “forgiven” like a mantra or prayer. We can do this when a memory of old bad behavior or harsh speech arises, or when we are gripped by the vague, uneasy sense that we are, well, painfully limited, controlled by our conditioning. This can feel like emerging from a dark cave or prison cell into a bright light, opening up to be healed and uplifted by a greater, wiser, infinitely more merciful consciousness.
Throughout the ages, many people have called this greater consciousness God. But you don’t need to worry about this to practice saying or thinking “forgiven,” to practice recognizing and accepting your humanity. The act of opening up to something greater than your own conditioning, your own extreme limitation, does not depend on belief or views of any kind.
In the current Parabola (I admit I harbor the hope that you read Parabola, and tell your friends to read it), we explore the theory that the brain is not the sole creator of consciousness. Instead of being a virtual reality machine (in addition to a capable housekeeper) it may be a receiver capable of receiving a frequency beyond the boring reality show featuring each of us as the center of our known universe. In my book this interesting theory boils down to old sacred wine in a shiny secular bottle: there is a greater light of consciousness above us and around us and maybe even in us, if we open to receive it. To receive it, even for a moment, is to be forgiven.
Not surprisingly, the word “forgive” comes from a word that means to give. To forgive a debt is like giving solvency to another—absolving them, pulling them out of debtor’s prison and back into the light of the living. We can practice tuning into a frequency outside the prison of the self. We can practice saying “forgiven.”
Months after the death of his beloved wife Joy, C.S. Lewis had a vivid sense of her as he took his morning bath. Up until then, he seemed always to be thinking of her absence, of the vast hole her absence left in the world. Real, living people have a presence that is greater than what we can see and name. Changeable and elusive, it slips right through the net of memory. Lewis realized that if we are to be as fully alive and fully ourselves as God (or, if you prefer, that greater outside consciousness or finer frequency) we have to let go of our attachment to our cramped and dark little thoughts and images and “stretch out the arms and hands of love” to the mystery of the unknown. Practicing forgiveness, asking and granting forgiveness is practicing stretching out the arms and hands of love.
Like many men of his generation, my father was a veteran of World War II. At the conclusion of his funeral a few days ago, an honor guard fired a twenty-one gun salute. This ritual came from the custom of ships firing off all their guns to show that they came in peace. With no time to reload before they were in range of the shore, the ship was voluntarily defenseless. To ask for and offer forgiveness is to put down arms, daring to show ourselves as we are without defenses. This New Year, may we all dare to put down our guns–to take off all our armor, even the subtle forms. May we all sail into the New Year disarmed, stretching out the arms and hands of love to the unknown.
Thank you, Tracy – many beautiful thoughts here.
I have thought that to be thankful, to be able to forgive and to be joyful were all markers of a spiritually and emotionally balanced person. But I think you are right, to be able to truly forgive ouselves, or to sincerely receive forgiveness, may be the first step outside of our own inner pain. As you and Clive Staples Lewis note, this may be
the first step out of our own isolation so that we can receive and give love.
Happy New Year, dear Tracy!
Dear Scott, Happy New Year! I do find that forgiveness–esp. self-forgiveness–is the first step out of the pain of isolation. We tend to sentence ourselves to solitary, and all the time the door can swing open.
Absolutely a grand essay, what a great way to start the new year. Coincidentally, I said to someone today,” I will always forgive you”.
Thank you, Patricia. Happy New Year!
Tracy – Another thought. It was suggested to me many years ago that if I ever want to see true wisdom, I should go to a 12 step meeting and listen to the testimonies of those who are 30 years clean and sober. So I went and studied 12 step programs and heard testimonies that brought me to tears. I saw people working the program, a hard humbling process where old habits are crushed and brains are rewired.
At some point it hit me was that the 12 steps were missing something and that was forgiveness of self. The meetings, when done properly, save lives. But, there is no step for self-forgiveness and perhaps in their context, self-forgivness could be an enabler.
On the other hand, there is something else that goes on in these meetings, in the context not of working the 12 steps, but in the group itself. Healthy relationships are built and modeled, helping hands are extended, and deep vulnerabilities are exposed. Penance is paid and in return, love and trust is offered and accepted.
So – I reason as I write, classic extrovert that I am – self-forgiveness is not offered in the 12 steps themselves. Where it is offered is in the love of the group. The love of the group and the sponsor support the one and over time the one becomes whole and healthy again. They have put down their guns, made themselves vulnerable, and are accepted and loved.
Dear Tracy,
Thanks for these two paragraphs which have inspired this comment from across the Pond in London:
1- “The act of opening up to something greater than your own conditioning, your own extreme limitation, does not depend on belief or views of any kind.”
and
2- “To ask for and offer forgiveness is to put down arms, daring to show ourselves as we are without defenses. This New Year, may we all dare to put down.”
As you know there exists here (and I write as a dual national) an ancient tradition of witty, biting, even bitchy satire, rather like a Francis Bacon portrait painting, which may at first seem a vicious “put down” in quite a different sense (think Swift or Pope).
But my American-self knows that its gruff initial “Now wait a minute!” shock-reaction is merely a knee-jerk defence from my embedded cultural-bound US conditioning. In Britain there’s still a prevalent, at first surprising, attitude where multi-cultural strangers or friends can cheerfully say aloud “Ah, well – we agree to disagree”, often even from extreme differences of opinion.
This extra perceptual option in my view offers a greater mindset flexibility that the USual rigid duality of “love it or leave it” or “you’re either for me or against me” which I’ve encountered all my life, sometimes even in New York City where my father spent many of his formative years.
So here’s a test case, if any one wants to try it (and assuming you guys can pick up BBC Radio 4 broadcast) from the noted local writer Will Self suggesting a New Year’s resolution about Britain’s current obsession with foodism.
He shows “ourselves [resident here in the UK] as •we• are without defenses”, but firstly he uses local smart-bomb shock tactics to blow them up, perhaps opening up some recipients – as you say – “to something greater than your own conditioning”. Probably, though, one needs to forgive Will his method, like you would someone tossing a bucket of cold water over you as an astringent to wake up:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pglsb
And so you know: I subscribe to both Parabola and Private Eye :\
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/pages.php?
Dear Ramsay, What a delightful combo, Parabola and Private Eye. Thank you for your comments, esp. since I have been thinking a lot lately about how important it is to be fully ourselves–and yet not take ourselves so personally, demanding that the whole world love us or leave us. I happen to be a fraternal twin. Recently, it’s dawned on me that it might be fun to go ahead and be the evil twin…and all the better to practice self-forgiveness.
To let go of our attachment to our cramped and dark little thoughts and images-I learnt through the 12 steps that it is these which keep me from forgiving myself, these cramped thoughts and images which separate me from my fellows as no one can possible understand my pain/shame/loss, separate me from God or whatever that power that heals is, these cramped thoughts and images feeding my ego, making me different. A wonderful essay to start the New Year/new day with.
Dear Fiona and Scott,
Thank you for bringing up the example of the 12 steps. I am always drawn to friends who practice the 12 steps (and some have playfully encouraged me to step up my drinking so I can really be part). There is a truth that appears in such groups that does help us out of our cramped little thoughts, our sense that no one could understand. To be accepted as we are, this prepares the ground for self forgiveness, doesn’t it?
Fiona, thank you so very much for helping me to understand.
You’re welcome Scott-the forgiveness of self occurs through working the steps. The greatest gift which we can give ourselves is to put the steps into practise in all aspects of our lives.
It all takes time and we are impatient beings-as an old friend said “we come in looking for a fix and are given a solution”, a solution we work and live on a daily basis. I find my forgiveness levels fluctuate with my state of mind/spiritual condition/humaneness too
Have a happy and peaceful New Year
Hi Fiona, this is a marvelous bit of wisdom to share: “We come in looking a fix and are given a solution” (hope I got it right). And I love that a solution also means to dissolve something in a greater medium. May all our dark and cramp thoughts, our sense of separation. dissolve in the water of a greater truth…(sounds like a New Year’s toast).
The power of forgiveness is the Christmas story. The story of the nativity and God’s love at work within the world.
One week ago today was Christmas Day. Today is the 8th day of Christmas, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
We are each accepted and beloved, you are accepted by that which is greater than you.
Thank You Tracy and Everyone Else!
Happy New Year, Ron. May we all know we are accepted and beloved on the earth.
Hi Tracey,
Indeed you got it right and I like the New Years toast, definitely one to remember. The same wise owl who pointed out that I had been handed a solution also drew my attention to forgiveness as being two words for and giving. It was also remarked that the Lords Prayer speaks about “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” and it was through practising the amends (metanoia)steps of the 12 step programme that I was able to forgive me. The wisdom of those who have trod the road before us can shorten our journey-a little like pilgrims of old swapping stories when they met.
Really enjoy your blog and Parabola.
Fiona
We are all pilgrims, swapping stories along the way. Thank you, Fiona. I think we all need to work the 12 steps, to turn towards self forgiveness, forgiveness, new life.
Happy New Year. Well at least until it once again becomes the Old Year.
I’m posting this link on forgiveness here not as something we should do since as we are, we cannot, but only as a glimpse of a potential which only those few like Simone Weil with experience can provide.
http://theowlgeorgegrant.blogspot.com/2011/08/simone-weil-on-forgive-us-our-debts.html
Fiona, Thank you for giving us all the benefit of your experience. As I recollect, metanoia in Greek means a turning, could be a turning “to” or a turning “away” bit usually the former as in turning to new life, especially in the context of Christianity.
Could you help me to know which steps are the metanoia steps and how they help in the process of self-forgiveness? I hope this is not an imposition.
Scott
Hi Scott
Metanoia also means change and is the root of the word amend, so 8 and 9 are the relevant steps.
I also found through the acceptance of self(warts and all)in steps 4,5,6 & 7 that there was forgiveness too.
I always find it difficult to say such and such a step does x or leads to y, as I find I’m generally living a hodge podge of them-a wee bit of this and a wee bit of that. Thats me being Irish-nothing straight forward or by a rue book
Enjoy the journey,
Fiona
Fiona,
Thanks for the response. Methinks it is the whole holistic package of program, sponsor, meeting, and the force greater than us. I have a friend who no longer goes to church because he feels the Spirit and receives more live, support, and honesty at his meeting then he does at church.
Thank you again,
Scott
I am not Irish but I hope to be an elf when I grow up!