[net.philosophy] FORGIVENESS

merrill@rex.DEC (12/17/84)

"...Forgiving is the only way to be fair to yourself. Getting even is a loser's
game. It is the ultimate frustration because it leaves you with more pain than
you got in the first place.  The only way to heal the pain...is to forgive the
person who hurt you. Forgiving stops the reruns of pain... Forgiveness is the
only way to heal the hurt we never deserved."
						Lewis B. Smedes
	`Forgive and Forget' (harper & Row, 1984)

Why all religions, philosophies, and `isms don`t emphasize this aspect of
practical forgiveness is beyond me.

mat@hou4b.UUCP (Mark Terribile) (12/22/84)

> 
> "...Forgiving is the only way to be fair to yourself. Getting even is a
> loser's game. It is the ultimate frustration because it leaves you with
> more pain than you got in the first place.  The only way to heal the
> pain...is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiving stops the reruns
> of pain... Forgiveness is the only way to heal the hurt we never deserved."
> 						Lewis B. Smedes
> 	`Forgive and Forget' (harper & Row, 1984)
> 
> Why all religions, philosophies, and `isms don`t emphasize this aspect of
> practical forgiveness is beyond me.
> 

	Sigh.  Most do.  Read Carnagie's ``How to Stop Worrying and Start
Living'' -- there are a couple of litanies of quotes given.

	I will add one or two.  I'm in the office and I don't have my Bible
handy, but I seem to remember something about forgiving your brother not seven
times, but seventy times seven times.  What about the instruction to give your
tormenter the other cheek after he damages the first one?  How about the Prayer
of St. Francis:

	Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.
	Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
	Where there is injury, pardon.
	Where there is doubt, faith.
	Where there is despair, hope.
	Where there is darkness, light.
	Where there is sadness, joy.
	Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
	  to be consoled as to console,
	To be loved as to love,
	To be understood as to understand.
	For it is in giving that we receive.
	It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
	And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

And what about the prayer that Jesus gave us:

	... forgive as our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
	against us ...
We can ask only for what we give others.  That is a pretty powerful and
practical order! 

	This group is an excellent forum for discussion.  It can also become
a forum for disinformation -- propaganda that may or may not be outright
falsehood, but that fosters erroneous ideas.  Most religions, at least the
ones that tend to hang around, call upon their adherents to forgive.  The
current and past failures of Christians (the Crusades, Northern Ireland today,
truly shameful treatment of Jews), as well as Moslems (the wars against
Christian Europe, atrocities past and present against Jews) etc, and etc, is
more an indication of our falliability than an indictment of the religions
that seek to help us out of our deepening mess.

	We seek to escape from our responsibilities as human brothers and
sisters ... responsibilities that lead us to guilt when we ignore them.  Some
of us start rationalizing that we are alright, that the fault lies with those
of us who remind us of our responsibilities.  Anxious to escape the pit that
we have made for each other, we blame the messengers for the wrongs that they
remind us we did.  Remember the prophets of the Old Testament!
-- 

	from Mole End			Mark Terribile
		(scrape .. dig )	hou4b!mat
    ,..      .,,       ,,,   ..,***_*.