Lesson on Love

There’s a man I visit in jail each Monday. I go and read the Christian Science Bible Lesson* to him. We usually have very little small talk, and he doesn’t tend to have anything he wants to discuss with me. I just come in and read the lesson, and he listens.

This Monday when I read the lesson, feeling how it might feel to him, it seemed, to me, the most tender message I could possibly deliver. It is a lesson that makes it very clear that we can be forgiven, and spells out how it happens, and how comprehensive a forgiveness it can be.

It’s not a thing I’ve thought about that often, not having committed a heinous crime - the tremendous hope that comes with the prospect of forgiveness, the tremendous lifting and redemption it can bring. But I thought of it this time as something that made all the difference - to me, to everyone I know and love, and to everyone I don’t yet know. Imagine being forgiven! - the slate wiped clean from all the things that niggle as regrets - times I’ve said something stupid, times I’ve failed to understand someone else, acts of arrogance. Also from all suspicions of being unworthy - clumsy, weird, ungainly, ungraceful, uncool, unlovable. Being totally forgiven would mean that any of the things I’ve ever done or been that I have regretted, and also any things I was unaware of but which other people held against me - would have no more weight - no ability to pull me down, no ability to determine anything about who I am and how I will act. Being forgiven means being able to define myself anew, as the beloved of God.

I then thought about what it means to be able to forgive others the same way. It means to let go of anything I’ve held against them - all my annoyance, impatience, indignation, all my feeling that I need to find some way to change them, any hindrance to my simply loving them purely. What a freedom for me! No obligation to judge or hold back my affection to “encourage” better behavior. No need to decide how I’m going to feel about them. The fact that they are forgiven lets me merely love them - so easy! - and see what God has given me to see in the moment of our interaction.

When I was reading the lesson in the jail, the man I was visiting would often be looking down, so I couldn’t see his face. But sometimes he would look up, and sometimes I saw moisture in his eyes. Whether that was from deep feeling or sleepiness, I can’t say. But I had the deep feeling, and still do. I feel deeply loved from the reading of this lesson, miraculously forgiven, and greatly uplifted from the forgiveness of others.

*to read this week’s lesson on the subject of Love, visit a Christian Science Reading Room or see the ebiblelesson at spirituality.com.