Wednesday 8 July 2009

Forgiveness and forgetting

All day I have been returning to one particular thought namely, to what extent is forgiveness related to childhood position within the family and the need to often forget issues to enable continued family peace? I know that some may say that I am forgetting the spiritual aspects of this but I believe that, to a great extent, they are related.
In part this was triggered by memories of a school friend who would never consider sharing, after offering one biscuit, packets of chocolate biscuits as normally they were all his; another friend who would never consider taking anything for themselves until everyone else was satisfied, ( There are issues here but I won't look at them further.) and socialisation within the family and school.
As a member of a family of five - 2 adults and 3 children - my own experience was based on sharing (not always willingly in the first instance) though I am now going back 50+ years. It was encouraged, and not only within the immediate family but with friends, and greed was not encouraged but fair shares were. Sometimes it worked and at other times it didn't but although some immediate displays of annoyance, anger etc were made they were usually quickly dissipated within the family and school and things often forgotten; indeed forgetfulness of such issues was encouraged. However those with no brothers or sisters etc. were often quite different in response to such issues and seemed more concerned to their right to what was on offer than others.
Within families there seems to be a great deal of forgetting as, to do so, it may carry on functioning. In part this may be, when children are aware enough, spiritual but a great deal of the time it may be appear, and need to be, necessary and situational but out of this the spiritual can grow. I bet Jesus had a Nelson eye for some things!
I can only speak to my observations and could be very wrong but I do not think that I am arguing to the general from a particular case but from many cases I have observed. This may seem to lack the Q spiritual but there is a mixed relationship with the Q spiritual and the Q temporal from what I can see.
Foregiveness, to last, requires forgetting; forgetting requires foregiveness. These apply not simply in childhood but throughout life but childhood provides the foundations of rock upon which they can be built and not those of sand upon which they can be swept away.
In Love
Peter

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