Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

    The need to forgive others is, for me, a very important issue.  It is
    often easy to wish for vengeance or retaliation against those who hurt
    us; I know that I can be as guilty of those feelings as anyone.  But I
    also know that it is possible to listen to the small, still voice
    within that urges us to forgive others, and even to love our enemies.

    As a corollary, I think we should also remember the importance of
    forgiving ourselves.  After all, we are to love others as we love
    ourselves, and that implies that we should also love ourselves.  For
    many of us, this is not always an easy thing to do.

    -- Mike

    
    RE:
        <<< Note 147.1 by CSC32::M_VALENZA "I want your electrolytes" >>>
    
    
    >As a corollary, I think we should also remember the importance of
    >forgiving ourselves.  After all, we are to love others as we love
    >ourselves, and that implies that we should also love ourselves.  For
    >many of us, this is not always an easy thing to do.
    
    
    I will second *that*!  It is so easy to beat on my self for every
    little mistake I make!  sigh
    
    E Grace

    Once, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, I started to compose
    a sermon on Peacemaking.  I nearly finished before I was provided
    the realization that my audience was not ready to hear this message
    (as IMHO, all too many Christians and others are not ready to hear);
    that I would need to deliver a preliminary message.  Again, under
    the direction of the Holy Spirit, I composed a whole new sermon
    that would be a predecessor to Christian Peacemaking.

    This new sermon was on forgiveness.
    
    Peace,
    Richard

    Forgivness, I think we all have heard someone say "I can't forgive
    that person/persons for what they did to me/us" 
    It's not that they can not forgive, they do not want to forgive. 
    God has given us His only Son for our salvation and is willing to 
    forgive us our sin throu His Son. 
    By accepting Christ and putting our trust and faith in Him we
    have recived much grace. Let us use this grace to forgive others.
    
    Unforgivness = anger = hate = death.
    
    When one has been hurt by someone, rather than hold that anger in
    forgive them. But forgive them from the heart not the mind.
    For there is no healing without forgivness.
    
    May we all use the grace our Father has given us.
    
    In the Light of Christ.
    Bill                  

    
    	I know a person that is not willing to forgive any wrongs 
    done her in the past.  That attitude has tainted not only the things in
    the past that were actually good but is has also poisoned the joys of
    the present and destroyed the hope for the future.  It is like a bitter
    root growing deep into her soul, sucking the very life from her.
    
    _ed-

    
                 Heard my "daddy" in preaching say once that "I can forgive
    so much because I have been forgiven so much".  
    
    
    Dave

Good topic, Bill!

A few tidbits I've learned about forgiveness...

I don't have to forgive and forget, just forgive.
Whatever happened, happened.  If I can remember it and learn from
it, without being weighed down by it, I can grow.

I can only forgive what I cannot excuse.  (Our pastor said that one sermon.)
If I can make excuses for the deed ("well, I was in a bad mood", "maybe they 
had a bad day...") then I cannot do the work of forgiveness.  I think this 
relates to accepting guilt honestly.  When I can say "there *IS* no excuse, it 
was a rotten thing to do..." then I can truly forgive.

And of course that great plea/admonishment in the Lord's Prayer, 
    "forgive us our sin, *as we forgive those who sin against us*".  
If I insist on carrying such burdens and nursing old wounds, I can expect no 
different treatment for myself.  This touches on my perception of Hell.  I can 
carry my hell with me wherever I go, or I can lay that burden down at the foot 
of the cross.  *I* can crucify my Lord.  

Please, no flames, I do not take this thought lightly at all.  I think what
this illustrates is the awesome difficulty many people have in accepting
Christ's free gift.  Yes, the gift is free, all you need do is accept the
responsibility of murder, but in doing so, that is forgiven, and if *that* can
be forgiven, then imagine the depths to which we can forgive as we have been
forgiven, and the heights to which we can love, "as I [Jesus] have loved you."

Hmmm, this reply didn't go quite where I thought it was going to go...

Peace,

Jim

    Note 207.0 and its replies moved by moderator to 147.4 through
    147.8, an existing string on the topic of forgiveness.
    
    Richard Jones-Christie
    Co-moderator

Article: 629
From: [email protected] (Norman H Redington)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.quaker
Subject: A Curious Custom
Date: 26 Feb 1993 16:29:14 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 
Query: What does it mean to forgive another
person? Is it possible? How does one ask for 
forgiveness? How does one react when someone
asks to be forgiven?
 
A Curious Custom: In Eastern Europe and elsewhere 
this coming First Day is called "the Feast of the
Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise". It is
the beginning of the Great Fast, the Orthodox
equivalent of Lent, and the way in which it is
celebrated is connected with the query above and
with the experience of the early Friends.
 
It is of course paradoxical that the expulsion of
Adam and Eve should be the subject of a feast, but
the early church saw the coming of death into the
world and the coming of separation from God as,
mysteriously, followed by an even greater Paradise
than Eden. George Fox said likewise: "I was immed-
iately taken up in spirit, to see into another or
more steadfast state than Adam's in innocency, even
into a state in Christ Jesus, that should never 
fall. As people come into subjection to the spirit
of God, and grow up in the image and power of the
Almighty, they may receive the Word of wisdom,
that opens all things, and come to know the hidden
unity in the Eternal being." (Fox's Journal)
 
Expelled from the first Paradise through our own
errors and greed, we humans (the early church and
the early Friends taught) are nonetheless not
without hope; captives in Babylon, we can even
now see the beginning of our liberation. An early
Quaker prisoner in an English jail was asked
what the Light had shown him during his internment;
he replied: "My own darkness, and a great light
shining into it." For this reason in the Orthodox
Churches a very strange sort of music is used
during the Great Fast, melancholy and cheerful
at once; the Russian philosopher Alexander Schme-
mann spoke of it as conveying "bright sadness".
 
The climax of the celebration of the Feast of the
Expulsion from Paradise is a very curious practise.
For Christ to became manifest in our lives, the 
early church taught, we must simultaneously be aware
of our own errors and follies and yet sincerely
forgive everyone else's. As the Quaker Francis 
Howgill wrote in 1655: "As you own the gift which
Christ has given you, that is, repentence, you will
see to life, and then you will see something arising
and shine in you." And in the words of Christ: "If
thou bring thy gift to the altar and there remember
that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave 
thy gift before the altar and go thy way; first be
reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer 
thy gift."
 
To make this a reality, it is the custom of the
Orthodox on this day to personally ask every
person they meet for forgiveness, bowing down to
the ground in front of them.
 
Forgiveness is asked not only of one's enemies,
but of one's friends and loved ones whom
one is constantly failing, and of complete 
strangers, for noone knows whom they may have
quite unintentionally injured or offended.
 
It is a very strange experience to have someone
prostrate themself in front of one in this way.
What response is even possible? The traditional
response is to say "The Lord God forgives" and 
ask forgiveness in return.
 
Needless to say in the real world this is a very
unpopular custom even in so called Orthodox 
countries. In many places it has been formalized
into something purely external, a sort of dance
of prostrations at the end of the vespers service.
In many others the tradition is extinct altogether.
I have been told that many people stay home on 
this day; they find it undignified to bow down, or
they are too self-conscious, or perhaps there is
someone they are unwilling to forgive.
 
A curious custom.
 
-----
Norman

    
    Our pastor taught on forgiveness in church on Sunday.  His passage was
    Psalm 51:1-10.  David wrote this Psalm after Nathan the prophet exposed
    David's sin with Bathsheba and against Urriah.  How did David ask for 
    forgiveness?
    
    First he took ownership for his sin.  He didn't try to justify what he
    had done.  David realized his sin was against God.  He took that very
    seriously.
    
    Second, he was sorry for his sin.  David was so overwhelmed with guilt
    and grieving it took 3 words to describe what he did:  trangression,
    iniquity, and sin.  Likewise when David asked for forgiveness he asked
    in 3 ways:  blot it out, cleanse me, and wash me.  The pastor made an
    interesting point about David's sin...it was the sin of the high hand
    (the illustration Nathan gave was the wealthy man taking the only ewe
    of the poor neighbor) for which there was no sacrifice for under the
    law.  When David asked for forgiveness he was asking for a miracle.
    
    Third, David committed to change his life; to never have that sin
    enter back into his life.  David didn't get caught in the rut of asking
    for forgiveness of this same sin over and over again.  With true
    repentance, David turned away from the sin.
    
    Jill