Dear Michael,
thank you very much for your words!
What you describe is also something very dear to my heart: namely to
listen carefully, what a person says when talking about forgiveness.
Not only listen, but rather "sense" and when I am not sure, to take
time to ask. This attitude might help with other ways we use language
as well- no matter in which countrie's tongue.
I do remember once having listened to a holocost surviver, a woman
who's name I have unfortunately forgotten. She said something along
the following line: until I was able to forgive I could not heal.
Through the hatred I stayed in bondage with the perpetrators. Only
when I was able to forgive I could start healing.
I remember how these words stayed as a very important impression in
my mind and heart. It changed the way I used the constellation
assumption: forgiveness is bad, because it puts you higher than the
perpetrator.
To forgive can very much have the meaning of letting go of the
charge. In that way it can be an ultimately freeing act that puts you
neither on top nor below someone else, but right into the middle of
youself.
And I am very glad we have this forum to ponder such and similarly
important issues!
Sneh
