Image of God and Forgiveness

The image of God imprinted within us desperately yearns to fulfill its destiny of being a generous, valuable and integrated part of our surroundings. However, throughout life (starting early) in at least most of our human relationships we find that trying to fulfill this destiny often leads to feeling exploited and other negative emotions.

We often respond to this by trying to adopt rules for relationships (sometimes with religious backing) that will make them safe enough that maybe our imprinted image can manifest itself. At the extreme end of this is the appeal of fundamentalism to common folks. However, we find that trying to control things with rules and then the rules themselves are not compatible with the image.

Sometimes we go to the other extreme and think freely giving all of ourselves to relationships irregardless of how we are treated must be the answer and that this offering of ourselves will be enough to transform the relationships into something where our deepest self (God’s image imprint) will be able to be the generous, valuable and integrated part that it knows it is. However, we normally find that we (including the image) are trampled.

Commonly we vacillate between the extremes, thinking the answer must be in balancing them.

If we are dedicated, lucky, and have good mentors/friends we find ways to let go of the scars from past relationships and in the process realize how our image imprint (and our spirit emanating from it) were ignored, disregarded, and trampled upon to produce those scars. This is the process of forgiveness, for as long as the scars are still present we will at least somewhat react from them. Whereas once we go through this process of forgiveness, we realize the process has also taught us how to have relationships that nurture the image and emanating spirit of all involved.

Unfortunately, most are not taught how to go through this process of forgiveness or are unwilling to do so and seem to think forgiveness is a simple decision and done. In actuality it is a decision to start and continue to go through the process of forgiveness but much more than a simple or quick decision in totality. Most tragically, they thus lose out on learning how to have different nurturing relationships and often repeat the same mistakes over and over.

If a genuine reconciliation might occur, the process for the offending party to ready themselves is very similar since any objectionable behavior is just as repulsive to the image imprint of the offending party. Until both are well into their own such processes it is almost always better for each to focus on their own scars and learning from them, rather than rush a premature reconciliation without each having the necessary foundation.  And longing for reconciliation is often the best and sometimes only sufficient motivation for either or both to continue on their own processes.