He is merciful...Mohammed Ehsai (Iran - 2007)... seen at The Islamic Arts Museum in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

{{{click on the image to enlarge it - I apologize for the less than professional image - I took it with my phone}}}

 

The piece is called "He is merciful." Yes, God forgives, but can we ever forgive ourselves?

If we look back on experiences we had and the harmful things we did to others which are truly painful for us to remember, and perhaps if we view this as a stage we left and cannot go back to, we can join God in forgiving ourselves. Then there would be nothing left for us but joy. 

So I think the key to forgiving ourselves is to look at a painful memory and to say, basically, "Thank God I moved away from acting like that. Thank God I can't do that anymore." This can lead to a sense of calmness and can help to remove the sense of lingering regret we might feel. 

What about forgiving others who have hurt us? This seems to be one of the most difficult of goals. Lots of folks talk about the importance of forgiveness, and they claim to have forgiven, but I am not so sure I can believe them.

Maybe we should think about what "forgiveness" would be. It would not involve reclassifying what happened to us as having been a good thing. Like all of us, I have experienced real malice and cruelty in my life - that has to remain acknowledged as malice and cruelty.

So forgiveness would seem to be a two-step process. First it would be the realization that something cruel or malicious was done, but we would be able to avoid feeling the normal responses to that. We would rise above the need for retribution. We would be able to say, "Yes, that person was cruel. That person wanted to hurt me. That person went out of his/her way to hurt me. But I control my emotional states and I do not have to return feelings of malice for feelings of malice. I can let these negatives emotions go. I have to let these feelings go - they are wrong."

I guess the same would apply to the person who hurt us. We have to remember the lousy things we have done and realize how flawed all of us are or can be. Again, it is simply a matter of recognizing the negative emotion we feel and letting it go. We don't have to replace it with anything, we just have to realize that we have the capacity to rise above retributive emotions.

If you look at Ehsai's amazing painting above, we see that some of his text seems to be reaching higher and some seems to be probing lower. The text looks like a congestion with branches growing above and roots growing below. This image can represent the process of God reaching down for us and us reaching up to meet God. Or it can represent the growth process of putting down roots into the earth, into our ancient, biological lives and raising ourselves to meet a higher principle.

Do you like thoughtful writing? If so, please read some of my essays from The Good Men Project: https://goodmenproject.com/author/daniel-gauss/