Forgiveness

“Forgiveness does not chance the past, but it does enlarge the future.”  Paul Lewis Boese

Forgiveness is an amazing thing, isn’t it?  Here, I don’t really mean FORGIVENESS, as in what God provides, but the lower case, forgiveness, forgiveness that we humans dispense and receive (though sometimes that looks and feels like FORGIVENESS).  I mean, in the ins and outs of life we all encounter those “slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune” on a fairly regular basis on both the giving and receiving end both, yet somehow we continue to function.  More than that, we actually (in most cases) interact again (whoa here) even continue to have relationships with those we forgive/those who forgive us.

It occurs to me that if, instead of forgiving them, each day we all just lessened our circle of friends and family by casting out of our circles those who offended us, those we needed to forgive, pretty soon we’d all be alone in our circles.  In that way, forgiveness can enlarge our lives, “enlarge the future.”