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Enjoy another wonderful text by Rev. Phil Smedsted, minister Emeritus of Oasis Rising Center

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Phil Smedstad's texts are one of the ways Oasis Rising Center supports members.

A Positive Path for Spiritual Living

Oasis Rising Center Spiritual Center
Oasis Rising Center 8125 West Sahara Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89125
(702) 804-8189
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“The Freeing Power of Forgiveness” 

By Rev. Phillip Smedstad
           
In the past several decades, we have had some amazing examples of forgiveness.  One which comes to mind is the Amish community which quickly forgave the gunman who killed five of their children.  Another is Nelson Mandela, who, after being in prison for 27 years, took the country on a path of forgiveness rather on one of revenge.

Another one I read about recently is a woman from Rwanda who watched as her husband and four children were killed.  Afterward, her thought was, “I love my husband and children too much for my life to be about getting even.  I want to remember them by living a life of love.”

Hopefully, you and I will never have a forgiveness challenge that large.  However, we have all felt hurt by past events.  And, one of our themes here at Unity is that forgiveness is not something we do for the benefit of others.  We do it for our own benefit.

Bishop Desmond Tutu once said, “Anyone you haven’t forgiven is someone to whom you are tied with a very strong chain.”  Then there is what Jesus said:  “Forgive those who persecute and despitefully use you.”  Why did he say to do that?  So we could be good people?  So we can be righteous?  Or Moral?  Not at all. 

He said to engage in radical forgiveness “so you can be children of your Father in Heaven.”  In today’s language, he might have said, “so you can continue to experience oneness with your Source.”

We forgive because we deserve to be free – free from resentment (which one author called “re-sentiment,” those times when we go over and over a time when we felt attacked or harmed by another).

Also, forgiveness of others is a powerful way to practice forgiving ourselves.  We can’t believe, on the one hand, that other people are guilty, while on the other hand believing we are innocent.

A Course In Miracles reminds us that forgiveness is our most important function on planet Earth.  Charles Fillmore, our Unity co-founder, once said, “A half-hour of forgiveness each day will cure any ailment we have.”

On Sunday, I told people that I had two questions.  First, is there anyone you haven’t yet fully forgiven?  I asked them to think of parents, ex-spouses or lovers, former (or current) bosses, President Bush, President Obama, or anyone else?  The second question was, is there anything for which you haven’t yet forgiven yourself?
In Unity, we are blessed to be able to take forgiveness deeper than most people can, because we know some very profound truths:

• We know that we are all divine, eternal beings.
• We know that at our core we are still as God created us – whole, sound, and unharmed – and so is everyone else.
• We know that we are so powerful that no one can do anything to us that we don’t want them to do.

As A Course In Miracles says, “Everything which seems to happen to us we ask for and receive as we have asked.”  This means that everyone in our life is an extra in our movie, someone we asked “Central Casting” to include in our life so we could become all we want to be in this lifetime.

People who don’t know the spiritual principles that we know usually practice forgiveness “the old way.”  That way goes like this:  “You really did hurt me, but I, being the bigger and more spiritual of the two of us, now deign to forgive you.  I would never stoop to your level.”

In Unity, we know how powerful we are, so we know that we can never be victims.  We know that we create every painful event in our lives because there is a gift we want to receive from it.  Usually, that gift is waking us up to some mistaken decision we made about ourselves, a belief which is still manifesting painful results in our lives.

Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela led a whole country in a practice of deep forgiveness.  They called it the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  Bishop Tutu said, “We all have no choice but to forgive.  Forgiveness is not an option.  It is a mandatory step toward healing and positive change.”

Bishop Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu (also an Episcopalian Priest) wrote a book called The Book of Forgiving.  In this book they share a four-step forgiveness process.  At the same time, they emphasize that the most important thing is having the intention to forgive.

Step One is to tell the story, first to someone we trust, and eventually, if possible, to the perpetrator.

Step Two is to name the hurt and feel the feelings that go with the event.  Here in the USA, many of us are so afraid of anger that we try to skip over this step, and it is a vital one.  As Dr. Todd Davison, a psychiatrist and spiritual teacher once said, ”How can I forgive someone I never felt free to blame?”

Step Three is to actually grant forgiveness.  Mpho Tutu said, “How do we know if we have truly forgiven?  It differs for each of us.  For some, it’s like a huge weight being lifted.  For others, it’s a feeling of peace, or getting to that place where you can sincerely wish the other person well.  Ultimately, it’s a feeling of freedom.”

Step Four is to either release or renew the relationship.  If we release it, it doesn’t mean that we failed.  If we renew it, we don’t pretend that nothing happened.  Rather, we create a whole new relationship from this experience.

On Sunday, I said that this is the beginning of Easter week.  I invited everyone to let this week be a time to take forgiveness deeper.  As we do, we will find that Easter Sunday becomes a more powerful experience of resurrection.

We each deserve the freedom that forgiveness offers.