The easy option

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You know, one of the things I strive towards with this blog, is how to try and leave behind a maybe just slightly better print on how to think about animals and our own involvement with them.

I am sure you, just like me, have very strong feelings about what ought to happen to people who are cruel towards, mistreat or or kill animals. I am in awe when I watch programs on Animal Planet where you see those specially trained people who go out and rescue animals from cruelty and all kinds of horrendous situations. They sometimes stand face to face with the most vicious and callous of purpotraitors and frankly, how do those officers handle the sheer anger and fury they must feel about those individuals? Honestly... how do they do it??

A while back I posted this quote "Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game". Someone left a comment saying that those who shoot animals for fun should be shot themselves. It's bloody difficult curbing your own feelings about the matter, isn't it?! 

BUT... like Gandhi so unbelievably wisely said "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".

How about the forgiveness stance, that you can forgive the person but you can NOT FORGIVE THE ACT.  The easy option is to want to see the person wiped off the surface of this planet. It's happened throughout history. Humans are heavily printed with the want for revenge and the inability to forgive.

We all know that cruel or callous people always seem to have a history of having been badly treated in one way or another themselves. But how are they ever to be set free as humans if they will never be forgiven?

No, I am not some better knowing, on my high horse saint... I don't know if I could do it. But I have travelled up that path of forgiveness to some degree and all I can say is that I believe that there's a better way for the future of living in harmony on this planet along that pathway of forgiveness.

(This study of forgiveness comes from a small book called "The Seven Pillars of Forgiveness" and can be bought via Feminenza, a world wide network of women that I am part of).


Painting ©H. Lee Shapiro

Comments

Andrea said…
Forgiveness is a choice! It is NOT a feeling. I know. I forgave the person who was responsible for my sister's death some 20 years ago. It was the right thing to do. I did NOT want to or feel like it at the time, but I knew I had to do it. If I had not, it would have never harmed that individual, but it would have certainly consumed me and eaten me alive from the inside out. I have NO regrets. I know my actions were what GOD would have me to do.
Blessings, andrea
Dear Andrea, thank you so much for contributing to this important dialouge. I find it amazing to think about what you must have been through personally and would love to hear more about your thoughts on how to articulate the process of forgiveness.
Anna E said…
Hmmm, very good questions you ask, and not that easy to answer. My experience is, that I go through a lot of layers and reactions, before forgiveness can happen throughout, in case it concerns serious hurts or harmfulness. And I believe it is important to allow the reactions to come out of the "system" before being ready to even concider forgiveness. A wise man once told about, how he would sit and watch television; When seing something, that was really not "on" in the natural order of things, he would say out loud "..I want it dead, and I want it dead now!..." Not that he would ever dream of hurting something or someone, but he took a stance against degeneration and said it out loud to himself and the "astral light". When deeply hurt, I have found myself going through a journey of chock, hurt, sadness, depression, not understanding why, and anger. Only when I have allowed myself to acknowledge that those feelings are "natural" to have, have I been able to detatch myself from the situation, and taken a stance in myself. Afterwards forgiveness can begin to enter the picture, and it is a relief. But not understanding what has happened, and why, can delay the ability to forgive - so quite a "long-term" process for me, sometimes.

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