Forgive

 I thought about the idea of forgiveness. I was watching a Trevor Noah interview that I clicked on very reluctantly and I spent the first few minutes watching in anticipation of hearing something that didn't please me and would give me a reason to close the video. I had recently seen Trevor at the Kevin Hart show in Pretoria, South Africa and the reception he received when he walked out was incredible. The crowd erupted and I believed that the show was about to begin and that it was Kevin walking out, being seated where I was it was hard to see who the individual the people were responding to actually was.

 the screens turned on and there he was, a local boy turned international and the crowd was pouring out love. A friend of mine who I had gone to the show with immediately got on his feet to welcome Trevor and his excitement was reflecting the general atmosphere in the room at the time. When I saw that it was Trevor I was pleasantly surprised, the love the crowd gave him made me feel proud of him and I knew that he was deserving of it. In Trevor fashion, he said greetings in some of the local languages, a reminder of the fact that he was indeed one of us. 

Back to the interview, as the interview went on and both Trevor and the host, Jay, said some profound things I had a moment of clarity to a time in my life when if asked what I thought about Trevor I'd say "he's overrated, he's just mixed race" an opinion I now know I didn't wholeheartedly believe but that I thought I needed to hold as a counterweight to Trevor's popularity. I didn't dislike him and as a lover of stand-up comedy, I'd always watch his specials whenever they aired on DStv. 

The obvious contradiction in thought and behavior should have been an indicator but as I watched this interview there was a moment when I felt I finally saw him and not the idea of him that I may have prematurely developed a long time ago. I apologized. I chuckled and said to myself  "I'm sorry man" and at that moment something about the very nature of apologies and more importantly forgiveness opened up to me. 

Trevor wasn't here to hear the apology so what was the point of giving it? The point is no man is an island, our interconnectedness transcends logic and delves head first in the the unknown territories of reality. It is beyond comprehension but not beyond appreciation. My apology to him was an apology to myself as well, any parts of myself that unbeknownst to me I may have in common with him were suffering from the very biased preconceptions I made and held on this individual that I knew very little about, even though the relationship between public figure and the public makes it feel like we have an actual intimate relationship of some kind. I have had similar experiences in the past in which a release takes place after asking for or giving someone forgiveness, and that's the magic of it.

"Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us"
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us"
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors"

To forgive is to be forgiven and to ask for forgiveness is to forgive. The idea I had was that of my inner guardian, my soul, the essence of my being, taking note of my penance. You are always watching yourself. You are always witnessing yourself. When you "hold" a grudge, who do you think "holds" it and what do you think the price of that is? 

Like your physical self, there is only so much you can hold on to before you have to choose what to let go of in order to grab hold of something new. What are you holding on to? As I said the words "I'm sorry man" tension eased in the space that I was using to hold onto whatever opinion of this man that I felt I needed to hold on to. 

Asking for forgiveness allowed me to forgive whatever part of me was carrying the brunt of the weight. or more fittingly my asking for forgiveness allowed me to forgive myself for ever having gone down that road. As opposed to falling prey to a sunk cost fallacy and doubling down on my opinions just because I would look stupid to change my mind after so long. 

This isn't to say that making things right in the world is not important or that all one needs to do is forgive themselves for all the ways they keep hurting others. That would be a different sort of moral corruption and self-indulgence. But rather, the idea here is that there is a record keeper inside us all that see us in all the situations we find ourselves in and according to both what our internal moral compass says and what our external environment imposes on us keeps a record of the apologies we owe and are owed to us and so 'forgive me my sins as I forgive those that sin against me'. That idea reflects the age-old notion that nothing can be kept secret and that the scales of fate always even out.

To simplify the idea, the person that needs your forgiveness most, for things you have done and more importantly for things that were done to you, is yourself. It sounds counterintuitive but a lot of the things we need to forgive others for are almost always facing internally more so than externally because we resent ourselves for ever having been in that position whether we know it or not. And for anyone that is sure that it's definitely the external world that is rotten and needs to ask you for forgiveness then jump back to which part of you is holding on to that notion and what price are they paying in the form of things you may want or need that they can not grab onto because you are making them hold onto this notion?

Extend yourself some grace, I have recently fallen in love with the idea of grace partly because its full meaning escapes me, and yet I still have access to it through the word itself. I don't have to know it to know it, I don't have to be perfect to be perfect. Surely there is grace in that. 

Forgive yourself. Forgive others.

Forgive.