Förlåtelse - Forgiveness

One of the hardest in the sense of most difficult, is to forgive.  Sometimes we have to forgive for what is true harm and hurt, and sometimes for only perceived harm and hurt.  The lovers who hurt one another often are faced with this perceived hurt, as opposed to actual hurt.  But is there a difference?  Obviously there is, but in the mind of he/she who is hurting, it is the perceived which is paramount.  What actually is the case is immaterial to the hurt.  Here is where forgiveness comes in.  I know that when I'm very angry (enraged is more like it) with my spouse, she often strikes back to only heighten the hurt.  I wonder, if she would grab me and give me a hug on those occasions would there be a difference?  I think so, but when you are hurting, what you may need and what you want may be different.  Perhaps I want to be hurt.  Perhaps that is why I strike back with my boistrous voice.  The lion when backed into the corner with a chair and whip in his face and has no escape growls and strikes back.  Are we any different?  Perhaps I want to just be alone, or left alone?  After the hurt has subsided I wonder about things.  I, more often than not, am left to apologize, and sometimes that also hurts, because forgiveness is not immediately felt.  Would a hug do the trick before the argument escalates?

What is the moral requirement here, what is our duty to our lover, spouse or friend, what is our duty to ourselves?  They are different in some way, but one wonders how different?  Other questions also arise.  Often I am forgiven for arguing or striking back with words, but can I forgive the perceived hurt, I think not, although I ought.  Not because I will not temporarily suspend the hurt because the argument failed.  It clearly failed when the hurt was not communicated, or was it?  Should we not see that anger and argument is nothing more than reaction to perceived hurt.  I know it is painful for the one who has to listen to my anger, but can that person hear the hurt inflicted.  Often the hurt is part of love.  What does Lord Byron say?

Ah ! Love was never yet without

The pang, the agony, the doubt,

Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,

While day and night roll darkling by.

 Without the pain can there be love? Without the doubt there is little seperation between the lovers.  Without the agony there is no hurt and no guilt for the hurt.  Byron goes even further:

Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,

Can neither feel nor pity pain,

The cold repulse, the look askance,

The lightning of Love's angry glance.

In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine;

Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;

Like melting wax, or withering flower,

I feel my passion, and thy power.

Amid the hurt, there is clear indication that the one who inflicted hurt has power and the one hurting, rather than withering or melting, perhaps that only comes within the apology, feels intensely and more so the hurt.

My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,

Can patience preach thee into rest?

Alas ! too late, I dearly know

That joy is harbinger of woe.

To strike back and continue the hurt with argument is truly "too late".  My favorite passage of Holy Writ is in the twelfth verse of Psalm 103 (102), "As far as east is from the west, so far hath He (the Lord) removed our transgressions from us".  I hope those words are true, yet I know that east is to my right and west is to my left when I'm facing north.  So perhaps the Lord leaves our transgressions to our own selves, but forgives them.  I hope so.  If and when I die, before I go, I hope my spouse can forgive all my sins and transgressions towards her, and likewise if she should die, I hope I can forgive her.  I cannot go without that forgiveness, for I expect that it ought to be that:

                        Gå vi till paradis med sång [Go we to paradise with song].