"Superior Strategy"

Anybody out there creating a "quiet desperation" sense of life?

Maybe longing for a matter of fact confrontation with a moment of authentic lightheartedness?

Ready to let your mind out to play with a kick-ass wake-up call right out of the liberating ethic of that spiritual warrior from Nazareth? You are? Terrific!

Okay . . . find yourself a place to "come apart and chill for awhile." All set? Great! Now, wrap your mind around the invitation to grace He laid on us in Matthew 6:14-15. "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14-15) Sounds like a real God deal getting laid on us, doesn’t it?

Now, as if that wasn’t enough to bite off, consider what He offered for our attention just two verses earlier in Mathew 6:12 towards the end of the Lord’s Prayer... "And forgive us our trespasses as we also have forgiven those who trespass against us."

There you have it! Three verses containing six references to this "forgive" phenomena, not to mention the same three verses containing three references to a reciprocal effect the practice is alleged to generate. Forgive, be forgiven. Don’t, you won’t !

What is this act called "forgive"? What is this outcome called "forgiveness"?

To forgive is a way of seeing your world that preserves the sanctity of the image and likeness of contentment you were created to be, which is to say your natural state, your divine inheritance.

Forgiveness is the manifest state of non-condemnation as way of life which is different from non-judgment as way of life. Discerning intellect is an obviously necessary and helpful resource for skillfully navigating the ever changing flow of situations and events that we call our lives. Helpful, that is, as long as we remember not to allow our cognitive conclusions to close our minds and hearts to the objects of our discernment, including, ideally, the one we know as "self." To do so is to preclude experiencing the healing touch of a moment of "forgiveness."

I’m comfortable thinking of an authentic capacity to forgive as a mutually enhancing way of being with each other that flows out of a refined capacity to embrace a personal sense of ethic and integrity liberated from any insistence that its point of view be agreed with or acted upon by anyone other than its proponent.

To forgive might also be understood as the mindfulness to refrain from investing agreement in the kind of spiritually immature thinking that cons you into believing that you can’t embrace someone critical of your agenda or bent on trashing your cherished opinions. As Pogo famously observed, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"

As forgiving consciousness becomes a being’s prevailing state, it secures its owner from the consequences of rash acts predicated on a wisdom similar to what you might call the "dubious wisdom of the second six-pack." Response replaces reactivity as modus operandi and you begin to reap the karmic benefit of sowing wise action.

And where to begin? I don’t believe anybody has clarified that question better than D. Patrick Miller in his writings on forgiveness. He encourages us to "begin, not with the idea that you are doing a favor to someone who hurt you, but with the idea that you are being merciful to yourself. To carry an anger against anyone is to poison your own heart, administering more venom each time you replay the injury in your mind. If you cease repeating the offense inwardly, your outward anger will dissipate." Just as Jesus counseled... "forgive men their sins and the heavenly Father will forgive yours."

So, if you are stewing over whether or not someone deserves your forgiveness, you are barking up the wrong tree. Consider instead whether you deserve to experience the grace of the Father’s forgiveness. And what a deal that is! No tight gut gnawing away at your serenity. No restless mind milking every last drop out of the melodrama, and a warm heart beating peaceful and easy. It’s the only way to go and you deserve it!

In these times of killings in the Mid-East being responded to with greater killings, can you imagine what a politics of forgiveness might look like? Consider the wisdom of D. Patrick Miller again as he observes “We’ve had the politics of one-upmanship, deception, and belligerence for so long that we have mistaken this way of doing things for "human nature." If we believe this is our nature, then peace, justice, and human equality become unachievable, romantic ideals used as excuses for more war and sacrifice, to keep the enormous wheels of global misery grinding along. (Not to mention the wheels of global commerce.)

The extent to which we think world peace is possible is exactly the extent to which we think our own minds can someday be peaceful. To understand why distant nations fight over territories, national pride, or religious beliefs, we need look no further that at our fight for a parking space or our struggle to procure a prestigious position over our competitors. If we think of surrender as raising the white flag before our enemies nothing within us will change. The only surrender that matters is giving up the belief that we have any enemies.

How can our politics begin to express forgiveness? Imagine politicians debating publicly in order to learn from each other, to educate the public, and to make sure all parties have been fairly heard. Imagine the media hesitating in their rush to judge people and events, in order to place reporting in the context of profound questions about human consciousness and moral evolution. Imagine our country’s diplomatic envoys arguing for peace in international conferences by admitting our warring history and violent tendencies first.

Now let’s stop just imagining that happening and hold every political and commercial leader’s feet to the fire of our demand that they stop practicing ignorance and violence as foreign and domestic policy and get their influence behind a spiritually defined model for getting it on with each other that absolutely forbids any strategy that does not pass muster at the gate of the Golden Rule and Forgiveness as primary operating system.

Let’s remember, as D. Patrick observes, "Forgiveness sends a healing message much further than you might believe or comprehend. As you develop a forgiving demeanor, you change minds less by your words than by your example, saving souls less by your program than by your presence.

"Forgiveness is a curious paradox of accepting everything just as it is, while working tirelessly for a complete upheaval in our behavior and consciousness. Some believe we must be constantly aggrieved to set right the injustices of the world, that good anger corrects bad anger. But an enlightened activism respectfully acknowledges all anger and sorrow while demonstrating the superior strategy or mercy.

"Forgiveness is the science of the heart, a discipline of discovering all the ways of being that extend your love to the world, while discarding all the ways that do not.

"As forgiveness liberates your energy, you may be moved to sing, dance, write, make art, or otherwise celebrate. Don’t let your day job get in the way." And by all means,

Enjoy the Grace!
Namaste'
~ Chad

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