"Forgiveness." Print

There is a particular cruelty we reserve exclusively for ourselves. We extend grace to others with an openness we would never dream of turning inward. We hold our own failures under a light we would never aim at someone we love. We often think shame conceals us. It doesn't. It just makes us harder to reach, especially by ourselves. The olive branches behind the figure are ancient in their symbolism peace, reconciliation, the end of a long war. Here they are not offered outward to another person. They grow from behind the self, quietly. Peace is already trying to find you. It has been there longer than the pain. The dove emerging from the mind represents the possibility of a thought that has never been allowed before — "I am allowed to be free of this." Not forgetting. There is an old practice of writing down what you carry and committing it to flame, not to destroy the truth of what happened, but to remove its power to define you forever. Some things can only be released, never resolved. Two hands emerging from within, cradling another face contorted in agony. This is the self we have been holding. The version of us that made the mistake, that caused the harm, that fell short. We have not let it go because some part of us believed that holding it in pain was the price of being a good person. I'm learning that it isn't. Accountability asks us to look clearly at what we have done. Forgiveness asks us to recognize that what we have done is not the entirety of what we are. The two are not in conflict. In fact one cannot fully exist without the other. The quiet radical act of deciding you are still worth something.