A Visitor
My father, for example,
who was young once
and blue-eyed,
returns
on the darkest of nights
to the porch and knocks
wildly at the door,
and if I answer
I must be prepared
for his waxy face,
for his lower lip
swollen with bitterness.
And so, for a long time,
I did not answer,
but slept fitfully
between his hours of rapping.
But finally there came the night
when I rose out of my sheets
and stumbled down the hall.
The door fell open
and I knew I was saved
and could bear him,
pathetic and hollow,
with even the least of his dreams
frozen inside him,
and the meanness gone.
And I greeted him and asked him
into the house,
and lit the lamp,
and looked into his blank eyes
in which at last
I saw what a child must love,
I saw what love might have done
had we loved in time.
Mary Oliver
... ek het gesien wat liefde kon gedoen het as ons betyds liefgehad het ...
Vergifnis is 'n moeilike ding. Ek wou eers skryf tricky - dis 'n tricky ding want dis kompleks, delikaat, sensitief, vernederend, maar ek het toe nie tricky geskryf nie, want dis alles behalwe skelm, glibberig, berekenend en al die ander goed wat ons met tricks assosieer. Dis nie 'n trick nie, dis 'n wonderwerk. Een waartoe ons geroep word.
Caroline Myss skryf:
"As appealing as forgiveness is in theory, it is an extremely unattractive personal action for most people, mainly because the true nature of forgiveness remains misunderstood. Forgiveness is not the same as telling the person who harmed you, “It’s okay,” which is more or less the way people view it. Rather, forgiveness is a complex act of consciousness, one that liberates the psyche and soul from the need for personal vengeance and the perception of oneself as a victim. More than releasing from blame the people who caused our wounds, forgiveness means releasing the control that the perception of victimhood has over our psyches.The liberation that forgiveness generates comes in the transition to a higher state of consciousness – not just in theory, but energetically and biologically. In fact, the consequence of a genuine act of forgiveness borders on the miraculous. It may, in my view, contain the energy that generates miracles themselves."
Iemand anders het gesê die daad van vergifnis is die naaste wat die mens aan God se natuur kan kom. En God is in ons en God se Liefde is in ons, maar vergifnis is gewoonlik so teen alles anders in ons - dit wat "reg" is, ons kultuur wat sê wat jy sal sal jy maai, input is output, 'n oog vir 'n oog (dis seker hoekom ons wêreld so blind is) en al die goed wat ek sonder handtekening onderskryf die hele week en dan miskien soms op 'n Sondag 'n vlugtige ander gewaarwording kry.
Ons gaan Sondag begin met 'n kort reeks oor die kortste boek in die Bybel: Filémon. Dis net 25 verse lank en tussen al Paulus se ander briewe is dit eintlik meer akkuraat om dit te bestempel as 'n poskaart. 'n Poskaart oor vergifnis. Paulus lewer 'n pleidooi vir 'n hoogs onwaarskynlike rekonsiliasie tussen twee mense - in die naam van Liefde.
Die liedjie van The Brilliance wat ons gereeld by InVia sing, se woorde som eintlik Paulus se kort brief, nog bondiger op:
Forgiveness is the garment
Of our courage
The power to make the peace
We long to know
Open up our eyes
To see the wounds that bind
All of humankind
May our shutter hearts
Greet the dawn of life
With charity and love
When I look into the face
Of my enemy
I see my brother
Vergifnis is die begin, die middel en die einde van die Evangelie. Sonder radikale, reëlbrekende, onberekende vergifnis - gegee én ontvang - sal niks ooit herstel, herenig, of nuut word nie.