Forgiving nature

“Sincere forgiveness isn't colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don't worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.” “You can't undo anything you've already done, but you can face up to it. You can tell the truth. You can seek forgiveness. And then let God do the rest.” “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

Life seems to be order and reason created in a universe that is composed of chaos. Is it perfect?
We humans with our ability to reason are not perfect although our continual trying to be deserves applause and encouragements. There are many "evils" in the world, some very great and some quite minor and all are of levels or intensities reasoned by our own judgements, perception and understanding. We are not Gods and we do not know everything and cannot know everything, we move forward often by trial and error and often making mistakes. Some of the mistakes we make can hurt ourselves and hurt others too.

Forgiveness is something that perhaps cannot come easily to some. Some reason it that we should not forgive because we are the ones hurt by some transgression and it's unfair. Are we then so perfect that we need never ask another to forgive us?
Some people mix up their ability to forgive with a need to be right or worse, a need to seek justice or compensation or worse, a desire to seek revenge and retribution. Some even prefer to stay in pools of misery in some perverse sense of "I deserve this", which means nothing more to me than some twisted idea of forgiveness somehow being confused with religious interpretations.

For me forgiveness is not about any of that, in the first step it's about love and understanding and our own need to grow spiritually towards enlightenment. Please forgive my choice of words there because I made it sound like my own religious beliefs of Buddhist values but please try to see it from the philosophical and moral point of view. I believe that you cannot give to others what you do not give to yourself. We cannot give love if we hate ourselves, we cannot give happiness if we are sad and we cannot forgive others if we don't first forgive ourselves. From what I have said here it becomes apparent that forgiveness is healing.

Some people say "forgive and forget", never did I hear a phase so often said and by so many who do not realise the emptiness of those words. Yes forgiveness can be divine in the sense that we are a better person if we find that capability within us, but forget?
No.
We don't forget, we learn by those past things and try to understand from them, but we don't keep those misdeeds on some score card and bring them up during any future argument. By doing that we show we never really forgave them. Forgiving someone means letting go and not giving it the power to eat us inside like acid. The forgiven must also realise that to be forgiven does not validate whatever they did. They too can learn, but remember that in forgiving them does not bring back what was before.

The act of forgiving someone really isn't about them at all, it's about our selves. Yes they receive a benefit from us forgiving them but we are the ones freeing our own hearts from the constant pain given to us by the offense. What in the world can we be grateful for? There are many things to be grateful for. I am grateful to my wonderful parents for so many things I cannot count, to my family and my friends and my teachers who have come in many guises, my health and so many other things besides. I am also grateful for my ability to forgive.

I hope I can always walk forward on my path in life with my head held up because I know in my heart that unforgiven things will only hold me back. I cannot change what has been done in the past by myself or by my Grandparents and I am truly sorry for any act against you by myself or by my Grandfathers. I can only say that I learn from my past as we all should, but I do not live there. The past is done no matter what we hope or say. We cannot go back to undo misdeeds. The only power we have is 'now", it is in this moment that we shape our futures.
Regrets of the past only keep us in it.
Fear of the future prevents us from living today.

We all know someone who deserves forgiveness and we all know someone whom we ourselves should ask forgiveness from. Even after years have passed it is not too late to give it or ask it.

My hope here is that if you read this then you can become more understanding, more tolerant and grow spiritually.