FREE-FLOATING FORGIVENESS

Forgiveness is on my mind this morning. I suspect forgiveness is the soul of all spiritual growth for there is no ego in forgiveness.

We are mistaken when we think that only God can forgive and stop there. For sure, I of my own self even with an honest desire cannot forgive. The thought that I want to forgive keeps the reason why I want to forgive foremost in my mind...the reason, of course, being another, the one who caused, or is the perceived source of, my pain.

Forgiveness is the result of a lifetime of prep work. We must needs do the prep work before we need to forgive. Searching, seeking, praying, thanking, a little cussing, a lot of crying...all are the essential ingredients of still more spiritual growth leading to the lessening of our ego's talons.

When we run up against our nemesis du jour, and we recognize it as such (from having met it so many times before), that recognition is the beginning of our rise to glory, a.k.a., our complete defeat, the defeat of our attempts to think our way to forgiveness. We surrender...often with the thought, "Oh, forget it...I am over this."  Usually not until some time later do we realize that our less-than-spiritual thought was God's work being done through us...God forgiving through us.

All of the still more spiritual growth that we have sought and still seek is geared toward climbing that steep and craggy mountain of ego. Only by conquering through grace our own self-centered wants can we be free "to empathize and relate to each other without fear, judgment, demonization, or division." Free-floating forgiveness in other words.

Thank you.