We don’t have to peel the layers, we can let it all go!

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I don’t like the word forgiveness.  It’s not that I dislike it either, but the word just doesn’t sound like what it is.  Forgiveness is the total release of the judgments we have about a situation.  It’s the release of the attachment to the meaning we made and the interpretation we have.

If you look at the etymology of the word, where it came from, it goes back to pardoning, and to giving up the need to punish.  You see, that’s not what true forgiveness is at all.  I sense that the original intention of what the word’s meaning is or was, has nothing to do with what we mean when we talk about forgiveness, and that’s why it just doesn’t ever feel right or adequate to me.

A Course in Miracles reminds us that words are but symbols, and that everything in our experience is part of an illusion, so in a world where nothing is real, and everything is symbolic, words are symbols representing symbols.  

Sometimes we talk about forgiveness as though it’s an onion that we need to peel the layers of in order to finally be able to let it go.

In my personal life research laboratory, I’ve discovered that when I’m ready to give up every opinion I have about something then there is no onion and nothing to peel.

Freedom requires my total willingness.

When I cling to opinions about what’s what right and wrong then I deny myself the opportunity to harvest the learning in my experiences.  When I remind myself that masterful beings never make a mistake – simply, I am learning  and growing from my experiences and there’s no mistake in that.  What makes forgiveness an onion is the refusal to be grateful for the learning – the refusal to harvest the learning in whatever the painful experience was.  When I’m willing to be grateful and harvest the learning, forgiveness comes easily.

Forgiveness never eludes me although it looks that way.  It can look like I’m chasing forgiveness, but what I’ve really done is decide I’d rather be right.  Now, at this point in my life, I’d rather give up my opinions quickly, harvest the learning and embody it.  I choose to be grateful for my expansion and my freedom.

Freedom is never in the future.  Freedom is only ever available now and it is ALWAYS available now.  So, right now I am grateful and thankful for all of my life’s experiences.  They have all brought me learning and I’m grateful because I am here to learn.  I’m grateful for everyone that’s participated in my learning experiences.  And what I absolutely know from the bottom of my heart is that there’s nothing to forgive because I’ve learned from all of it.  I am grateful for THAT learning most of all.  And in gratitude, I share this learning with all beings, because I’m one with them.  And so it is.  Amen.

I choose love, forgiveness and compassion.

They are the path of my glorious life!