We will only find peace when we know how to forgive.

By now you would have worked out that I am a great admirer and reader of Joan Chittister’s writings.  Her books, articles and other writings make me think and reflect on how I am living life.  95% of the time I can take something she says and use it in everyday life.

Society goes through different phases with every new generation.  My parents thought differently to me.  I am sure one of the reasons for this is that they lived through the Great Depression and World War II.  I have been blessed to have been given a good upbringing and have lived a life through relative peace.

This has its blessings but it also has its detriments.  One of the challenges we face today is the Sin of Entitlement.  Many of my generation and generations to follow believe they are owed something.  My parents’ generation knew they had to work for something.  These are two very different ways of thinking, living and operating. 

The latest Sin in our world is the Sin of Blaming.  Everyone else is to blame but me.

For me, the definition of an “Adult” is a person who no longer blames their parent’s or others for their own problems.

Becoming an adult has nothing to do with age but more to do with how we think, act and operate.  It has a lot to do with forgiveness.

The article below by Joan Chittister is a wonderful piece of writing which allows us to think about the true virtue of being an adult-a person who knows how to forgive. 

We will only find peace when we know how to forgive.

Edward Dooley (Mission and Faith Leader)

The burdens we carry

“I kept my sin secret and my
frame wasted away. Day and night
your hand was heavy upon me.”—Ps. 32

This psalm is a piece of very good psychology about the burdens we carry within us, our unforgiven sins.

When we don’t face our faults, our problems, our weakness, our angers, our sense of inadequacy—worse, when we blame them on others, or deny them, or need to be perfect, or become defensive—we refuse to accept ourselves. Every doctor and psychologist in the country sees the effect of that in their offices every day.

We all have things we need to forgive in ourselves or face in ourselves. We have things we know we ought to ask forgiveness for from someone else, but pride and stubbornness hold us back.

These things become a barrier between us and the community, a hot stone in the pit of the stomach, a block to real happiness. And nothing is going to get better until we face them.

Forgiveness occurs when we don’t need to hold a grudge anymore: when we are strong enough to be independent of whatever, whoever it was that so ruthlessly uncovered the need in us. Forgiveness is not the problem; it’s living till it comes that taxes all the strength we have.

 Some people think that forgiveness is incomplete until things are just as they were before. But the truth is that after great hurt, things are never what they were before: they can only be better or nothing at all. Both of which are acceptable states of life.

“Life is an adventure in forgiveness,” Norman Cousins said. You will, in other words, have lots of opportunity to practice. Don’t wait too long to start or life will have gone by before you ever lived it.

     —from Songs of the Heart: Reflections on the Psalms by Joan Chittister (Twenty-Third Publications)