Going back to the previous post, on the question of forgiveness, part of why I find forgiveness difficult is because there is an arrogance about it. To say to someone 'I forgive you' seems to me to be rather self-righteous. When Jesus was forgiving people in the Gospels he didn't say, 'I forgive you', he said 'you are forgiven' or 'go away and do not sin again'. Don't worry, I'm not about to go off on a religious kick but there is a lot we can learn about ourselves and the nature of humanity from the stories in, not just the bible, but in other ancients writings like those of Lao Tzu.
Lao Tzu was a Chinese philosopher who is credited with founding the system of Taoism. If I had to choose a religion, Taoism would be my first choice although there are a lot of similarities between Taoism and the teachings of Jesus. I'll have to check out what he says on forgiveness and come back to this.
In the meantime, I'm heading to England tomorrow for a long weekend and it's getting late and I have an early start in the morning. I have a few outings lined up. I'll be checking out the Van Gogh in Britain exhibition at Tate Britain on Monday and I'm dining out in Bel Canto on Saturday night which I'm really looking forward to. Fine food and opera all in one, should be fun!
And as to forgiveness, I'll leave that to 'God'.