In an age when we’re just throwing away and cancelling things left and right, it seems easy to think of forgiveness as an old fashioned and impractical today.
It’s true that actions have consequences, and it’s important that we take responsibility for the actions we have done- but leave room for real forgiveness.
Because without being forgiven, we would be forever confined to what we have done in the past. And just as a person could never break free of their past, society ends up repeating their mistakes too.
I think of a phrase that I love, “We don’t like thinking of evil as a mystery, because we don’t like thinking of our goodness as a mystery.”
I’m sure the real phrase is different, but it does give me pause…
The essay writes “Crime and willed evil are rare, even rarer perhaps than good deeds.…”
I understand this to mean that we need to choose to forgive- to will forgiveness (a good deed) in order for ourselves and for society to grow.
Read more at: The Faculty of Forgiving by Hannah Arendt
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