To hold on to a grudge, is to live in unforgiveness. Unforgiveness harms us more than it harms the person towards whom we hold it. We may say we do not care, but that won’t stop the little sore festering into something that infiltrates other parts of our lives. I think we probably all have sores that are sabotaging us, maybe only remembered when that person’s name comes to mind. Maybe when that happens, it’s God nudging us to forgive and get rid of the sore.

I’m sure I have many sores whose origin I have forgotten, or they have become unrecognizable through additions, exaggerations and distortions. How do we deal with something we don’t recognize, have buried, or moved on from or even deny? We may deny it, refuse to deal with it, or be happy to live with it. But if we think of unforgiveness as a cancer that we deal with in this negative way, we are the persons who will directly and ultimately suffer the consequences, with others being hurt along the way when we die from its ravages.

To start examining a stack of hurtful things that need healing, may land us in a place we find overwhelming.

Maybe we could rather ask God to help us to be responsive to memories, names or places that come to mind and when they do, to see other people are like us – both light and dark, sheep and goats, holy and unholy, all in need of healing.

“God loves you precisely in your obstinate unworthiness, when you’re still a mixture of good and bad, when you’re gloriously in flux. You’re not a perfectly loving person, and God still totally loves you. When you can participate in that mystery of being loved, even as the mixed bag that you are, you can receive the gift of the forgiveness. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s the only magnetic center that knows how to forgive other people—especially when people have really screwed you, really betrayed you, really abandoned you, really humiliated you. And sooner or later, this happens to all of us”.  “When I can stand under the waterfall of infinite mercy and know that I am loved precisely in my unworthiness, then I can easily pass along mercy to you “. (Richard Rohr writes in his book The Divine Dance)

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others”, may be better understood as a loving injunction and encouragement towards joy and freedom if we can say “as you have forgiven me, may I forgive others”. To say this with generosity, we need to spend time with God in meditation/in quiet prayer, to grasp and believe that God has forgiven us not because of who we are, a mixed bag, but because of his grace and love. God loves us and always will. Not like a yoyo – just when we are nice, and not when we are horrible. His love wants to transform us and does not condemn or destroy us, our friends or our enemies.

“God’s justice, revealed in the prophets, is always restorative justice, but this takes a transformed consciousness to understand. Read, for example, Ezekiel 16:53–55 where, after reaming out the people of Israel, Ezekiel uses the word “restore” four times in a row, and then “restored” three more times. God “punishes” Israel by loving them even more and at even deeper levels, just as God does with every human soul. This is the biblical theme of restorative justice, but it was just too countercultural to be heard above the nonstop historical drumbeat of retributive justice”. (Richard Rohr writes in his book The Divine Dance)

Because we believe (wrongly) that we get what we deserve, we justify not only our righteous condemnation of others but of ourselves as well. God doesn’t give rain only to the good but to the ‘evil’ as well. God gives the beauty of nature, the love of a little child, the adoration of a pet, his enduring love, to all of us, the mixed bags that we are.

Before we can extend this grace to others, we need to accept who we are at this moment (and who others are at this moment) and revel in the refreshing and healing waterfall of God’s love, given without conditions to us and everyone and everything else.