A challenge

[John]

I challenge you who are fighting to solve differences to stop fighting and join me in trying something different.

A dear friend of mine once taught me an invaluable lesson.

She said to me, "John, you are always big on justice and that is important, but justice is not going to bring Peace into your life. You can have Peace only when you are willing to give Peace. So, rather than looking for justice all of the time, perhaps you should sometimes look towards Mercy."

My life has been improving since.
I've had to practice on lots of little things first, but I think I've gotten pretty good at it.

So here is the challenge:
Commit to start practicing mercy and forgiveness with just a few little things and a few people today, and increase your willingness and ability, a bit, over the next ten days. Then on the March 20, I'll try to remember to throw out an even bigger challenge.

Do you think you can handle doing this?

Good luck - and Peace.



(If I forget to throw out the bigger challenge on the 20th, keep practicing until I remember, or you can remind me.)

[dalebert]

I don't know, John.  It doesn't sound very Quakerly. 

[Kat Kanning]

I forgive you, John.  Hey, wait, I don't have anything to forgive you for.

Great post!

[Lloyd Danforth]

Crazy Talk

[Tom Sawyer]

Thanks for your post John... lately I have been feeling down about prospects... destruction doesn't by default make your side win... creation is what I get motivated by.

Building our futures... both literally and figuratively. Of course some don't seem to see a future worth working towards.

[Free libertarian]

I accept your challenge.

[KBCraig]

I accept your challenge.

I challenge your acceptance!

...oh. Wait. That wasn't the point, was it?

[Sam A. Robrin]

I think there are four conditions--that's why they call it "fourgiveness."  I've made it alliterative for easy memorization.
A person has to:
1.  Recognize that what he did was wrong.
2.  Regret having done it.
3.  Show some evident attempt to
     Reform.
and
4.  Make, to whatever degree possible,
     Restitution.

If they've fulfilled those conditions, they've earned forgiveness.  If they haven't, forgiveness is just sanction to go right on committing wrongdoing.

[MaineShark]

By those standards, few can ever be forgiven.

How many of y'all are reformed Statists?  How many reading this still do support the State, to some extent?  Have you made restitution to all those who you helped to harm, while doing so?

There's a difference between "forgive," and "forgive and forget."  I have high standards for the latter, but if I couldn't at least forgive, how could I even walk around in public, surrounded by Statists?  What tiny fraction of a percent of the population can meet the standards to which I hold myself?  What fraction of a percent can even claim to be in the same ballpark?  Anger would eat me alive, if I insisted on perfection in all those I met...

I've always liked the Jewish tradition of tzedakah.  While modern Jews and others often translate that as "charity" and just give some percentage of their income to the first charity they think of, the actual word means "justice," not "charity," and what one gives should actually be aimed at righting injustice, not just giving money blindly.  Giving money so that someone lazy can sit at home is not tzedakah.  Speaking up upon seeing an injustice done, though no money is given, is a powerful form of tzedakah.  If someone is unjustly harmed by another, and in turn unjustly harms you, your forgiveness is a form of tzedakah, attempting to do what you can to right the earlier wrong that individual suffered.

I'm not religious, so I don't feel an "obligation" do perform tzedakah, but I think it's a beautiful idea, so I try to live that way, when possible.  There are some harms that I cannot bring myself to forgive, and there are some individuals for whom receiving forgiveness would not be just.  But for the majority out there, they have been harmed, and done harm, and it would be petty to hold a grudge...

(I've gone a bit astray of a simple reply, so please don't think this is aimed directly at you, Sam - was just a convenient place to put it all down)

Joe

[John]

I think there are four conditions--that's why they call it "fourgiveness."

Nope. I'm thinking about a forgiveness without conditions.

[John]

If they've fulfilled those conditions, they've earned forgiveness.  If they haven't, forgiveness is just sanction to go right on committing wrongdoing.

No it isn't.

[John]

(I've gone a bit astray of a simple reply,

You are forgiven.

[John]

p.s. Joe,
I'm not sanctioning your going astray. 

[MaineShark]

I'm glad you can forgive me for going astray, because I was dreamin' when I wrote this...

Joe

[John]

"When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free."
Catherine Ponder

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
Mahatma Gandhi

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you."
Lewis B. Smedes