“These are the words you wish you wrote down. This is the way you wished your voice sounds. “
The only times forgiveness can be displayed as anything other than an abstract ideal or virtue are in terms of such practices as truth commissions (like in Chile), truth and trials (like those in South Africa after the apartheid conflict), amnesty, whether blanket or conditional, as was the case in South Africa, or the sacrifice of Christ. In every situation, there are two sides, and rarely is it simply the villain and the victim. Except for in the sacred case, every villain has been victimized and ever victim has been villainous. If it is about truth telling, there is never any way to tell the whole truth. I don’t want to bother with the difference between restorative and retributive justice or collective versus personal confession and forgiveness. I want to print it out in black and white on a typewriter, marking every word in sound and ink. Bold and silent. Forgiveness should rely on the whole truth. It should mean more than a simple list of the acts of cruelty or injustice. It should be perfect. Because forgiveness should make things perfect. I will not print a pamphlet of our indiscretions to be marked up in red by different interpretations, memories or motives. I do not care to. I just want perfection and that’s not too much to ask.
1 comment:
You have already been given the only perfect forgiveness possible - the forgiveness through Christ of every sin.
You just aren't taking it.
You also have the forgiveness that only a parent can give a child. Forgiveness not based on knowledge of the wrong committed by the child but on the obvious regret by the child and unconditional love of the parent.
I don't think you're accepting that forgiveness either.
Hmm... you're calling me. Did you feel me thinking about you?
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