Everybody needs a little forgiveness

And love is harder than a word
Said I felt like dying, now everything's alright.
Love is different than you would think.
- Caedmon's Call


Lately I have been thinking about forgiveness. Thinking isn't exactly the right word ... it's more like recently I've had the opportunity to see the fruit of forgiveness in the lives of my friends. As is my habit, I keep trying to describe what I see, but this time, it isn't working. I have written a few beginnings, but I can't seem to move forward in developing my thought. So I started wondering why my words are stilted this time. I think it's because relationships are complicated. Monsters don't look the same in the daylight, and people are more than their worst moments. Because peace and release and compassion are a work of God, and good luck capturing them on paper. Because love is different than you would think.

Do you want to hear my beginnings anyway?


I.

I didn't know what to say to you.

We sat side by side this morning, drinking coffee in silence from identical black mugs. We weren't formally introduced, and now it's too late. I'm not sure what to call you and, if I was, I wouldn't know what to say after your name, anyway. You must feel some discomfort toward me, the intruder, as well. Or maybe you were responding to what you sensed from me - my averted eyes, my shifting weight. I thought I would take my cues from my friend, the one who holds this tangle of lives in place, but she, as always, remains steady. She seems neither comforted nor uncomfortable in your presence. This, too, leaves me uncertain. Shouldn't it matter more that you are here? But she moves as easily with you as she does without, remaining, as always, both relaxed and guarded, tending to the little lives that surround her.

You are part of the stories, part of a time that she has tightly confined and marked "before." She has forgiven you all, in turn, and sitting here this morning, her easy manner speaks forgiveness again. I wish I could do the same.

And

II.

Four women sat on a Sunday afternoon in a room of doilies and porcelain. Two were related, three were friends, two were lovers, two were strangers, one was bored, one was nervous, one was enchanted, one was relieved, two were interviewing each other, both passed inspection. The sun glared through the blinds, then hid behind the trees, while the women smiled or looked away or listened or talked or prayed.

When the room was dark enough for lamplight, one woman said to another, "They're home. Both of them." The other covered her eyes, took a slow breath, and waited. And I, the observer, waited as well - for the atmosphere to change, for pasted smiles and mumbled greetings. For a hasty departure, theirs, then ours. For the mood to be broken. I took a slow breath along with her and waited.

Nothing happened.


Twice this month, I watched women that I respect live out the act of forgiveness. I saw them bless those who once cursed them, and be kind to those who were once their enemies. Both times I have been surprised at how comfortable they were, how easily they laughed, how quickly they defended, how much they loved. I was also surprised at my own discomfort, and I realized how slow I am to forgive those who have hurt people I love. In watching them, I saw how the line between friend and enemy is hazy. The people who hurt us most can do so because we love them, and want them to love us. The command to love our enemies is really one to forgive our friend.

I respect my friends so much, who have forgiven their enemies and loved their friends. In watching them, I see how forgiveness is for the offended more than the offender. My friends have the freedom to grow, to love both their enemies and themselves, because they have forgiven others. Forgiveness, healing, restoration - these are the work of God, and growing in them, I think, is always supernatural.

Seeing how God is restoring my friends leaves me thinking, man, I have so far to go. I guess when it comes to the ways of God, I'm still at the beginning.