In my 23ish years of life, I've tallied up quite the impressive list of people who have wronged me and people I've wronged. The former is much larger than the later, for the simple naive reason that I don't see myself in those terms. If this were the Matrix, and I was projecting the image of myself, I would be an open-book, tolerant, trusting, and blindly, happily rushing on to my own demise. In this Matrix world, I am nearly always the victim, and rarely do I turn my burbs upon the populace that sometimes so justifiably deserves it.
Many life events have convinced my head that opening up and trusting people is a recipe for masochism, yet I continue to dance back and forth between opening up to people and hating myself for it.
Recently, life has transpired to be ironic. Today, waiting for a burn that might finish during the Second Coming (in Heaven, computers will burn with no encoding errors and perfect quality) I stumbled across an article about War Crimes of the Heart. The author explores, to an impressive depth, what it might really mean to forgive someone who has wronged us, and to ask for forgiveness.
The former is tough. The latter is even tougher. I am a big fan of closure; sorting things into neat boxes and stacking them on my Shelf-'O-Experience. But relationships are rarely that easy. Even just looking at the last four years... how do I forgive someone who, by all external signifier, neither wants nor notices my attempts at forgiveness?
Or, even more pressing... how can you forgive if you cannot trust? Let us say that someone extends the olive branch and asks for forgiveness; ironically, one of the very few people I crave to give forgiveness to and make amends (ah, be careful what you wish for.) But what if you suspect that their motives are not kosher-that their attempts at friendship are really a smoke screen for something more sinister? Is there a way to grant forgiveness without re-building that foundation of trust? Or does forgiveness require a certain level of trust?
My instructor once told me that bitterness in the heart is like rust on the sword; all it does is eat away at the metal and make it brittle. I do not want rust on my sword... but nor do I want to risk another betrayal. I feel that, if I am withholding trust, I am speaking forgiveness with my mouth but not my heart. Maybe that's why only the divine can forgive; they know the world and you in the world so well they can anticipate exactly how much hurt you will dish out the next time.
It is one of my deeper regrets, that I am such a coward about people. I seem to slink between trusting too much and trusting too little. Is there a balance? Is there a way to forgive without building another version of the relationship that was once broken? Or should you risk the hurt to rid your sword of rust? "If you want peace, prepare for war." That seems to be the real Catch-22; if you want to be a trusting, forgiving, open person, prepare for endless betrayal.
Many life events have convinced my head that opening up and trusting people is a recipe for masochism, yet I continue to dance back and forth between opening up to people and hating myself for it.
Recently, life has transpired to be ironic. Today, waiting for a burn that might finish during the Second Coming (in Heaven, computers will burn with no encoding errors and perfect quality) I stumbled across an article about War Crimes of the Heart. The author explores, to an impressive depth, what it might really mean to forgive someone who has wronged us, and to ask for forgiveness.
The former is tough. The latter is even tougher. I am a big fan of closure; sorting things into neat boxes and stacking them on my Shelf-'O-Experience. But relationships are rarely that easy. Even just looking at the last four years... how do I forgive someone who, by all external signifier, neither wants nor notices my attempts at forgiveness?
Or, even more pressing... how can you forgive if you cannot trust? Let us say that someone extends the olive branch and asks for forgiveness; ironically, one of the very few people I crave to give forgiveness to and make amends (ah, be careful what you wish for.) But what if you suspect that their motives are not kosher-that their attempts at friendship are really a smoke screen for something more sinister? Is there a way to grant forgiveness without re-building that foundation of trust? Or does forgiveness require a certain level of trust?
My instructor once told me that bitterness in the heart is like rust on the sword; all it does is eat away at the metal and make it brittle. I do not want rust on my sword... but nor do I want to risk another betrayal. I feel that, if I am withholding trust, I am speaking forgiveness with my mouth but not my heart. Maybe that's why only the divine can forgive; they know the world and you in the world so well they can anticipate exactly how much hurt you will dish out the next time.
It is one of my deeper regrets, that I am such a coward about people. I seem to slink between trusting too much and trusting too little. Is there a balance? Is there a way to forgive without building another version of the relationship that was once broken? Or should you risk the hurt to rid your sword of rust? "If you want peace, prepare for war." That seems to be the real Catch-22; if you want to be a trusting, forgiving, open person, prepare for endless betrayal.
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