Forgiveness

I strongly believe that we live multiple lives. We’re tasked with learning lessons in each life, relearning lessons that we didn’t or refused to learn in prior lives, until ultimately we become a “perfect soul”. This isn’t meant to imply that there are “perfect” people, but that there are some people who could be best described as possessing an “old soul”. Edgar Cayce reportedly had some theories on this topic that fall in line with what I believe, but I confess I’ve yet to read them. My mother had told me about them years ago. She also said she felt that I’d been her mother in a prior life, to which I thought I’d often felt like her mother in this life as well.

But I digress…

So, believing these things I’m conscious about the lessons I believe I’ve been tasked with learning in this life and have come to fear that forgiveness is one of those lessons. And I’m having a really hard time learning it. The worst part is, I’m pretty certain if I don’t learn to leave it now when my forgiveness would be granted for relatively small offenses, that I’ll be forced to learn a much harsher lesson either in this life or the next. Do you suppose maybe my residual anger and lack of forgiveness comes from things that happened to me in a prior life? That might account for some of my reluctance or resistance to learning this lesson. Hand in hand with my beliefs is also the idea that we also tend to be around the same souls in multiple lifetimes. Much like my mother’s idea (often stated actually) that I’d been her mother in a prior life.

Mark Gungor suggests that holding on to anger is much like drinking poison in hopes of killing someone else. He has a point. Don’t you hate it when someone knocks you down from your self-righteous pedestal with logic?

Actually I wonder if it’s not so much a tendency not to forgive, but a reluctance to trust that people won’t hurt you, so it’s easier to simply move on rather than give them a chance to hurt you again. That would explain my rather strict rule about not being friends with ex’s (I’ve never understood that). As Miranda on Sex and the City said once, “it didn’t work out, you need to not exist”. I’ve always said that I’m a complete Miranda. Besides, if the offending party who hurt you isn’t around, there’s no need to determine whether you forgive them or not, because you don’t have to deal with them either way. I rather like that. Of course, I have done the occasional Google search in the hopes that one certain ex has been run over by a train or publicly flogged or stoned or something. But since I have no real opportunity to run him over with my car, I don’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about whether I’ve forgiven him for being a complete jerk or not.

So yeah, I suppose I should work on my forgiveness skills, but for now I’ll limit it to people I’d generally not want to hit with my car. Hey, it’s my lesson, I’ll learn it at my own pace…