How I Think About Forgiveness.

Someone asked
 "How do you view the act of forgiveness if there is no such thing as sin ?"

---
My thoughts on this:

There isn't any ~dependence of ideas~, there.

If someone has grown enough that they're no longer the same person who ~would ever do the thing~ (whatever thing yester-them did that hurt yester-me), then:

There's nothing to forgive.
They aren't the same person. And I mean that quite literally.

The guilty and dangerous person evaporated;
like a dark cloud in the storm, after it thundered and struck me.
They don't exist anymore.
---
Whereas, if the person who exists ~now~
still ~is~ someone so destructive, then:
"forgiveness"
still isn't really the correct way to frame the narrative.

Instead, for me, it's not about a lingering debt from the past.
The problem we have ~in the now~ is that they are presently dangerous.

That's not about me.

It was never about me.

It's a dominant facet of their own personal chaos.

They might be in the habit of trying to make their lightning-strikes and thundering nonsense sound personal.

They might imagine that every person they strike is to blame ~as a lightning rod~ in their raging storms.

What I learned from such people is:
I'm not responsible for their storms.
I'm only responsible for how I react.

So then:
I stand back up.
I rebuild.
I resume my journey. 
But not within their reach.

What they've learned form it is:
Nothing.

I've matured enough to recognize that the only person it's person-al about is them.

That's their confusion.

It's their habitual impulse to be destructive and wasteful; rather than creative and restorative. 

It's not mine.

But every new day is a new beginning.

If they carry their dangerous clouds forward, then they just do.
In that case, the only problem I have with them
is the problem they still have with me.

In that case,
I'll appreciate the safe distance. 

I'll love the beauty within them,
from this safe distance.

I'll take a moment to mourn their waste of that potential,
from this safe distance. 

If they outgrow those limits,
then there's nothing to forgive.

They would let their own light shine. 
And the distance would resolve itself. 

Whereas, if they are not strong enough for that journey of inward discovery and growth, then they just aren't.
 
Either way,
that's not something they owe to me.

 It's something they owe to their self. 

They'll either make good on that debt, and prosper richly from that awakening,  

or they won't.