Do What?

I posted a poem yesterday about 9/11. It was focused on the necessity of praying for one's enemies and on forgiveness. It explored the difficulties involved in doing this, but also in its necessity.

After I posted the poem, I wondered about it. Not many people read my blog, but I wondered if it might upset anyone. And then I saw this sign on the way to lunch. While I wouldn't make such a statement as the one found on this sign, I do recognized the problem -- the difficulty -- associated with forgiveness. I think that part of that stems from a misconception that we have about forgiveness. Do we equate, I wonder, forgivness with excusing? Do we think that when we say, "I forgive" that what we really means is, "That's OK. You didn't do anything wrong."?

If an action can be excused then it, by definition, does not need to be forgiven. One of the things that makes forgiveness so difficult is that the person to be forgiven does deserve grace. Forgiveness is so difficult becuase it does require grace.