Forgiveness

HELEN L. MC DEARMON

Jesus said, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." There have, doubtless, been times in the experience of many of us when it seemed difficult to forgive; when we were worried over some injustice or offense someone had committed, thinking it our duty to see this error as real, and admitting that the misdeeds caused loss or suffering. The vain indulgence of such thoughts ought of itself to have been enough to awaken us to the futility of such reasoning; but mortal mind is ever ready with its false arguments, claiming that should we forgive and forget the unhappy circumstance we might be overlooking a personal responsibility and releasing another from a burden he justly deserves to carry. The error, however, which we are seeing as real is perhaps weighing more heavily upon us than upon the one to whom we are attaching it.

Jesus said, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." All condemnation is based on an erring sense which must be overcome through spiritual understanding, humility, and unselfed love. We may think in our egotism that we have nothing to do, that somebody else must change, when first of all our own thought of him needs lifting up and out of materiality. Condemnation never cleared away the mist of false belief for anyone; whereas loving, charitable, uplifting thoughts have often been the means of reforming the wayward. If we are humbly engaged in affirming man's oneness with God, we shall not allow a merely human sense of justice to judge another, but shall gladly own that our heavenly Father, perfect Mind, alone is capable of judging righteous judgment. Thus, as we learn to be receptive only to good, we shall be so joyously occupied in acknowledging the allness of God and the nothingness of evil that what to material sense appeared as an injustice, or an offense, will be corrected and will vanish.

The impoverished belief in a selfhood apart from God is seen to be so fictitious, so illusory, that one sooner or later awakens to the folly of placing reliance on it. Let us strive daily to separate all error from our thoughts of ourselves and others, and never give credence to discordant material sense testimony. In "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 8) Mrs. Eddy writes: "Simply count your enemy to be that which defiles, defaces, and dethrones the Christ-image that you should reflect. Whatever purifies, sanctifies, and consecrates human life, is not an enemy, however much we suffer in the process."

As we learn through patient overcoming to cast the beam out of our own eye, we shall see man as God sees him, perfect, pure, and free, the image of his Maker. In I John we read, "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" All will admit that unkind, resentful, condemnatory thoughts never have evolved peace or happiness; and although in times past we may not have recognized the discomfort caused by them, yet the longing to be charitable, kind, and forgiving has been innate in the human heart. It may seem a long mental journey ere we attain the true Christ-spirit; but the comfort and joy gained as the result of our smallest efforts in this direction foretell the greater bliss awaiting each one who is willing to lay aside all material thinking in order to follow consecratedly in the upward pathway pointed out by Christ Jesus, and so clearly illumined by our loving and devoted Leader, Mrs. Eddy.

After all, is there anything so important as the blessed knowledge that God is All, and that His love is far dearer to us than any merely material circumstance or condition? His love is greater, infinitely greater, than the highest sense of human love; and as we hold with steadfast confidence to the truth that our true being is spiritual, what should ever disturb our peace and equanimity?

Grateful, indeed, are we for the teachings of Christian Science, through which we are learning to love our fellow men in the truly Christian way, and, instead of magnifying their faults and shortcomings, endeavoring to see the nothingness of these by knowing that, since they are not of God and are no part of man, God's reflection, they are unreal.

In the second stanza of her beautiful poem "Love" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 387; Poems, p. 6) Mrs. Eddy writes:

"If thou the bending reed wouldst break
By thought or word unkind,
Pray that his spirit you partake,
Who loved and healed mankind:
Seek holy thoughts and heavenly strain,
That make men one in love remain."

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