I start with the provocative thesis that the act of forgiving is egotistical.
A bit of background is in order.
Let us first establish the meaning of the words in the title of this essay:
The Forgiver is the one who has something to forgive, and the Forgivee is the one to whom forgiveness is granted because he is alleged to have done something to Forgiver that should warrant forgiving.
There are two levels to this business of forgiveness. The first is ‘granting pardon‘ to somebody who has done wrong. This “granting of pardon” should only be done if asked for and we are not obligated to forgive if there is no remorse that he as the perpetrator has done wrong. Dwayne, a wrangler turned YouTube celebrity-philosopher argues that point very succinctly.
The second element of forgiving concerns only the Forgiver, the Forgivee does not even have a role. This might be recognized in Jesus’ famous last words “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” At first glance, this seems to contradict the idea, that forgiveness should be only granted if asked for, and those Romans who nailed Jesus to the cross certainly did not ask for forgiveness.
In my interpretation, how the Forgiver sees himself is essential. Does he see himself as a victim or is he above and beyond being harmed? Jesus was not a victim, God is not a victim, so there is nothing even there to forgive.
Only if somebody does FEEL like a victim, even for something as mundane as being short-changed at the store, or somebody not waiting their turn in line at Starbucks, could make him BE a victim and demand an apology.
It is always our choice what we are and what effect we allow others to have on us. Looking for an apology is a sure sign that we allowed the perpetrator to turn us into a victim. I must strongly state that I don’t like to be a victim and I do not allow others to turn me into one. I do not disagree with Dwayne that forgiveness should only be granted if asked for, but for your own sake, demand an apology only to help the Forgivee become a more valuable member of society, and not because you “deserve” that “I’m sorry”.
My conclusion is to recognize that, if I feel that I have to forgive somebody for something, I already went off the rails.
Forgiving in itself, or the realization that no forgiving is due is thus very egotistical, as it makes me more free – and that, in turn, makes it so much easier to “Love Thy Neigbor as Thyself”.
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played and it pleased the Lord But you don’t really care for music, do ya? It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing “Hallelujah”
[Verse 2] Your faith was strong, but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew ya She tied you to a kitchen chair She broke your throne and she cut your hair And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
[Verse 3] Maybe there’s a God above But all I’ve ever learned from love Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you And it’s not a cry that you hear at night It’s not somebody who’s seen the light It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
[Verse 4] Baby, I’ve been here before I know this room, I’ve walked this floor I used to live alone before I knew you And I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch Love is not a victory march It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
[Verse 5] There was a time you let me know What’s really going on below But now you never show it to me, do you? And remember when I moved in you The holy dove was moving too And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
[Verse 6] I did my best, it wasn’t much I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool ya And even though it all went wrong I’ll stand before the lord of song With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah
[Additional Lyrics] You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well, really, what’s it to ya? There’s a blaze of light in every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Ernest Gibbons Captain Aaron Sheffield “Happy” Daze Proscribed Prisoner No. 83M2742 Mr. Justice Lenox Dr. Lafayette ‘Lafe’ Hubert Corporal Ted Bronson His Serenity Seraphim the Younger, Supreme High Priest of the One God in All His Aspects and Arbiter Below and Above.
Growing up in Germany in the 60s, every boy worth his salt would read the stories of Karl May The school library had a full set of his travel stories – somewhere around 70 – and I believe, I read them all. Many of my schoolmates must have also been worth their salt, because books were often out and you had to wait and visit the library often, to get the book you hadn’t read yet.
One story (maybe several – I don’t completely remember) played in the Llano Estacado. It was described as a big, flat, and featureless area in America. Water was hard to come by and it was dangerous to reach the few and far between watering holes.
To assist, stakes had been set along the path to guide the traveler, therefore llano estacado – the staked plane. Sandstorms often made the crossing even more dangerous, but even in a storm the two to three-meter high stakes would guide a trek. (Yes, even more than a century ago, Germans used the metric system.)
The stories were adventure stories, so they needed villains. They enter the Llano Estacados as gangsters that pull out a series of stakes and set them in a direction leading into the void instead of to the next watering hole. The poor traveler following those stakes ended up in the middle of the dry desert and died of thirst – only to be robbed by the gangsters without any danger to them – because they knew where the watering hole was and had plenty of water for themselves.
I do not remember how the story’s hero, Old Shatterhand, dealt with the hoodlums but, knowing Karl May, it was most likely that they were punished by the wrath of god.
Even if I don’t remember the outcome of the story, I do remember the Llano Estacado after so many decades. It made a strong impression on that young teenager, who, at that time, never imagined that he once would cross that Llano himself. Today I helped to plan a trip to Llano, Texas, and I decided that it really is time to research that good old Llano Estacado.
And – as you see in the picture above – the stakes are still there, just a bit taller and now with wires connecting their tops – – I can only imagine preventing hooligans from re-staking them to misguide the traveler. – – Oh, yes, and the paths are paved now!
1. Only in America……. can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.
2. Only in America……. are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.
3. Only in America….. do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.
4. Only in America……. do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.
5. Only in America……. do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.
6. Only in America……. do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.
7. Only in America……. do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won’t miss a call from someone we didn’t want to talk to in the first place.
8. Only in America….. do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.
9. Only in America…… do we use the word ‘politics’ to describe the process so well: ‘Poli’ in Latin meaning ‘many’ and ‘tics’ meaning ‘bloodsucking creatures’.
10. Only in America…… do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.
(You may listen to the story below, read it – if you can – or emerse yourself completely by listening and reading along…)
In the early 60s (of the last century) my parents bought a little vacation retreat in Spain some 80 kilometers down the coast from Barcelona. My dad really wanted it partially because it was sold as an investment to make money. Looking back, it might have been the leading edge of the wave of today’s timeshares. Mom thought it was a scam and had written off the FIVE-THOUSAND Marks (!) – a huge investment for my parents at that time when the monthly mortgage for their house was one hundred and twenty-seven marks.
But it turned out to be real, and my parents got themselves a ‘bungalow’ 1700 km away from home. That was quite a trip at a time when only Germany had its Autobahn, but there were no other freeways in France and Spain on the way to ‘Torredembarra’ to speak of.
I spend quality time there on several occasions – I considered it my second home. Took my first big love there right after we met and took her there shortly before she dumped me.
Then I took my next big love, occasionally she was a bit jealous because she was not the first one there with me, but it all turned out OK because the last ever trip to Spain, before we left Europe altogether for a new adventure in the new world, was with her as my wife. It was a surprise visit to my parents who now spend several months at a time in a better climate than the one in the middle of Germany.
My wife and I had gotten caught up in a cult in the good old US of A. My entanglement only lasted about a year, but it cost me my marriage and the poor wife is still in there as far as I know. Escaping the cult, with my tail between my legs, I went home to my parents – at least I wanted to, but when I was just breaking all the bridges with the cult behind me I received a letter (yes, that was a thing) from my parents, that they were about to get on the way to Spain.
So, no going back to my parents! The alternative was to go to the parents-in-law, who still loved me and whom I still loved, and who were probably were not quite aware of the circumstances that had developed in California.
Just getting out of a cult, finances were rather tight, but to my credit, I have to say that I never was one of those cult members who immediately gave everything to the guru. I still had my Ford LTD station wagon, safely (or so I thought) parked in the public parking of the cult, and I had maintained my own bank account with some green-bucks. Still, I got the cheapest flight to Europe. $225 on People Express to Amsterdam. All went well getting into Shiphol, but I had not considered that there would be a problem to rent a car to cross the border from Holland to Germany. The only viable solution I found was to take a Lufthansa flight from Shiphol to Hannover, about 330 km for nearly the same price as the flight from LA to Amsterdam.
In Hannover, I could rent a car and so I finally arrived at my in-laws, disillusioned by the cult, with many broken dreams, without my wife, and a really bad case of athletes foot from the cult’s community showers.
During the three weeks it took me to bring back my feet to good health, I built myself up emotionally, started to make plans for the future, and got ready to finally visit my parents.
In Bielefeld, I got on the train to Spain – on the Train to Spain – hmm, that rhymes!
Flying was not really an option, as at that time – the later part of the 80s – cheap city-to-city flights had not been invented, and Lufthansa to Barcelona would have strained my resources too much. So, it was two days of rocking and shaking trains, only sometimes with a seat all for myself, but also sometimes curling up on my suitcase in the gangway connection between two cars, in an attempt to get some shut-eye.
After many different trains at many different railway stations, I finally got off at the train station in Torredembarra, Spain. I invested a few Pesetas for a taxi ride to my parents’ bungalow. I only knew how to get there but did not know any address, so I had to tell the driver, left here, then right, then left again, and so on. I really never knew the official address of the house, but it had a number – later photos indicated that it was something like 35 II, and the street something like ‘Clara del Sol’. But my Spanish was good enough for ‘a la izquierda’ and ‘a la derecha’.
It was quite some surprise – they imagined me in California, in fact, had sent a letter there a few weeks ago, and waiting for an answer, and there this guy gets out of a cab in front of their house in a little cul-de-sac.
And that should be my last time in Spain in that little bungalow. Eventually, I made it back to California and rebuild my life, something that might deserve a few other stories.
A few years after these events, my parents sold the little house but some good memories stayed with me. With the advent of Google Maps and street view, I tried a few times to re-trace my way from the train station to our little sanctuary, but there were so many changes that I did not recognize the area anymore and just could not find that little cul-de-sac.
Until – yesterday! A little village a bit off the coast, and as such mostly left alone by tourists in the initial waves of German vacationers, had been our place of choice for shopping for groceries and wine. Pobla de Montornes itself was also unrecognizable for me on Street View, but the road connecting Pobla and Torredembarra was there and not likely changed during the last forty years, so I – virtually – drove this road from Pobla down towards the coast. I knew that I had to take a turn left to get to our little street, but all the streets going left looked unfamiliar, and I had tried in the past to just follow them but always had ended up in completely unfamiliar territory.
Again – until yesterday! I must have dismissed that left turn-off previously, but following it this time, things looked more familiar. And – suddenly – I stood in front of ‘our bungalow’. Sure, a garage had been added, the fence had been upgraded, the street number had changed, and vegetation was totally different, but it was undoubtedly ‘our house’.
The Google car even caught an older couple in the yard, which could have been my parents, but aren’t. Should they have been reborn, they would be much younger, and I don’t think they would go back to the place that made them work really hard initially.
In order to never ever lose that location, I put it on the internet, because nothing ever gets lost on the internet.
Karin and yours truly visiting the parents in Clara – mid 80sPlantation Owners – early 80sThen Clara del Sol 35 II – now Carrer de Fortuny 9 – early 80sYours Truly – end 70sYours truly in 1974 during a 2-month stayWhat a difference a few years of working makes – Late 60s‘The Bungalow’ at the time of purchase – mid 60s
