Forgiveness Comes in Every Hat Color

Have you ever wandered into the cesspool of the human shadow known as the comment section of your local Facebook post? You know what I'm talking about. The triggering and polarizing article filled with rage bait and emotional fury sent to tempt even the most devoted of spiritual practitioners. 

It’s the moment when we are face to face with our compulsion to hit send before we process the ‘why’ behind the deep offense. 

I feel like my life has been a master level course in opinions. I’m an Aquarius Rising and my SQ shadow in the Gene Keys is opinion. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can look at it like I have a passport in moral superiority and all the sheep need to know that the wool has been pulled over their eyes. Or at least that’s me operating at my lower frequency. 

I read through the comments on a post about someone being detained by ICE today. They carried him out in the snow wearing only shorts and an open t-shirt. You can guess who was there for the comment party. Mr. He Shouldn’t Have Come Here Illegally was front and center waving his fists. Mrs. If He Just Complied He Would Be Fine clapped quietly in the back row. Mr. Wake Up It’s All Your Fault Republicans was playing drums on stage. Louder than he needed to be of course. And Ms. Where is Your Humanity was crying silently in the corner wishing it would all be over. The cacophony of voices and blame is enough to make anyone go mad. 

Especially when the prideful person warming the pew on any given Sunday would have been the same person yelling, “Crucify Him” a few thousand years ago, in another story, while wanting to belong to another group. Maybe they would have worn red robes instead of red hats but their sandals would have still been soiled with hypocrisy. 

It’s so easy to blame and judge. It’s so much harder to love and forgive and have compassion for other people. Especially when being right feels so good.

“O Lord, have mercy

O Lord have mercy

O Christ, have mercy

Have mercy”

— “God Have Mercy”, David Crowder Band

I was sitting in service at a Unity Church this Sunday. The pastor was talking about forgiveness. He asked us all to think of someone in our life who may be rubbing us the wrong way. Then he asked us to close our eyes and imagine sending them peace, love, joy and God’s abundant blessings. 

He followed it up by saying, “Next time you do this, you will do it far more sincerely than you just did.” We all laughed because we knew it was true. Forgiveness is not for the faint of heart. It’s a willingness to bypass your ego’s comfort zone and surrender the safety of your rightness for a peace that may or may not be immediate. 

“When asked how many times to forgive, Jesus replied, "Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy times seven times"

— Matthew 18:22

Seems like even Jesus knew we were going to need a lot of practice to get this right. 

The real deal is opinions keep us divided and what we need right now is union. Not some watered down version of love and light that bypasses the darkness or some militant strain of Christian Nationalism that puts the president over the prince of peace. 

We need to access that divine love underneath it all and to love our social network neighbor like ourself. 

Or at least that’s what Jesus would do. 

Sending prayers of peace, joy and God’s abundant blessings to you today. No matter what color hat you’re wearing.

Lots of love,

Meagan Maris