To err is human and to forgive is divine,; that is what I learnt as a child . Also learnt that to ignore injustice is to support injustice. So Iin my understanding forgiveness has an element of being and lies in the realm of inaction as much as it lies in action. An action not to fix the person but to stop the harm and an action that connects all of us, the victim, the perpetrator and the observers to our individual and collective compassion. An action that restores justice, condemns the act and redeems and restores the person who caused harm. But sometimes forgiveness is much more than action, when I feel deep resentment for the wrongings in history, I see disgust for an act turning into hatred for a set of people and hardening parts of me, freezing my real compassionate self, I need help in unfreezing and flowing. I need spaces and people where I feel held and heard. I have been moved by ' rubaroo roshni ' and other real life stories of forgiveness and restorative justice and I think that's what holds us all together, the ability to notice and collectively mourn our human tendencies to be cruel and from that point move on to strategies that address the innocent needs beneath those cruel behaviours.
On Mar 28, 2024 Madhuri wrote :