“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
~Matthew 6:12

Yesterday I was listening to the voicemails recorded on my office phone. I was jotting down the names and numbers of those who had questions and requests for return calls when one caller made what was to me the most astounding statement. ” I am an expert in forgiveness.” she said. I replayed the message three times just so I could hear someone, anyone, make such a claim.

Hanging up, I was consumed by desire. I want to be able to say that! I want to be able to say to myself and others that I am an expert in the fragile and courageous act of forgiveness. Unfortunately pure desire cannot make such a profound thing come true. While I may want to be a forgiving person, someone who can open my heart with humility to all I meet, I so often find myself digging a hole deep in the pit of my stomach and planting it full of resentments and judgments and just plain meanness. I am not proud of this but I know it is true.

How does forgiveness move in your life? Where does it find a home in you? How are you able to offer it to those you love, those with whom you struggle, those who drive you right up a wall? Reflecting on these questions, it is clear to me how difficult and yet imperative a life of forgiveness really is. It is one of the acts that keeps us moving forward in our spiritual lives,in the pursuit of happiness and in a quest for the common good.

What might it look like to be an expert in forgiveness? I think a recipe might include a heart of compassion and a huge helping of humility. Added to that might be gentleness with both myself and the people I live with, work with, travel life’s road with. This would probably be driven by an understanding that, as a general rule, we are all doing the best we can in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. This thought, in and of itself, should be enough to keep our hearts soft toward one another. Even when it seems someone has wronged us or done something to make us angry, the idea that they are really doing the best they can, should give us the opportunity to take a breath and choose our words wisely. Words that will eventually lead us to a place of forgiveness.

No doubt,becoming an expert in forgiveness, like most everything else, takes practice. When we choose to make a practice of forgiveness, I would imagine each new opportunity to offer this sacred act comes a little easier. I would also imagine that if we give ourselves to the practice, our capacity for forgiveness increases with each precious day.

In the prayer Jesus offered his followers, he placed the act of forgiveness right smack in the middle of these words many of us offer with great regularity. It is clear from those words that the ability to forgive is a two way street…….as the Holy offers forgiveness to us, so we are to offer forgiveness to others.

Becoming an expert in forgiveness is a call held out to us by the One who breathed us into being. It is sealed in the words of this common prayer held out in the outstretched hands on the person who tried in every encounter to embody God. My hope is that I might someday be able to make the claim I heard on my voicemail. It will, I’m sure, take a lifetime.