The Sanctuary of Value & Love
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Forgiveness & Mercy
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Change from being a flashlight searching
to becoming a beacon of light for others. 
Shine that light on the darkened dream
of an era where our innate goodness
expressed itself openly,
when compassion was unknown
because it was so freely present,
and when each sought understanding
and essential growth.
Forgiveness
Forgiving implies superior and inferior.
Forgiving harbors expectation.
Forgiving stores debt for future use.
Forgiving erodes your connection.

Forgiveness is tarnished with such forgiving.
Forgiveness knows you – and your errors.
Forgiveness has patience for you to grow.
Forgiveness feels the pain of your floundering.

Forgiveness walks beside you through the fire.
Forgiveness sees we all have our own paths,
and hopes you experience the learning.
Forgiveness is the love of inner goodness.

I walk with you and am here for you.
Why forgive a student for the needed lessons.
Forgiveness is understanding the greater plan,
that we all return home by our own path.
Forgiveness has been gravely mishandled. Our primal need to lord over others has stolen forgiveness for its own uses. In the usual forgiving, the forgiver is assumed to be superior to the forgiven, holding some higher status or more knowing presence. 
If I walk with you, side by side, each of equal value, then forgiveness is me being there for you when you stumble. My role is not to criticize, but to offer assistance when it is asked of me. 
Do we forgive the rain for falling on us instead of on the open field? Do we forgive the sun for going behind a cloud instead of warming us? Once we understand the natural flow of harmony in the world, we find there is nothing to forgive. Living in a state of forgiveness is simply being there for others, understanding we all have our own pathways to truth.
Forgiveness is traveling hand in hand, slightly different parallel pathways, knowing that inner goodness is trying to continually express itself in the world. Though not always successful in this expression, the goodness of your core self looks for comfort and understanding. It doesn’t need another to point out it test failures. The core goodness readily feels the suffering from those mistakes already. Our role is travel with them, aid them and offer our understanding, our support through our natural state of forgiveness.
Mercy
With a “greater” and “lesser”,
the duality of mercy arrives.
To deliver a favor or a punishment.
To hold the blade over your head.
Breeding the illusion of power.
Illusions in league with anger.
Feeding the duality. 
Erupting when the “I” is transgressed.
Mercy exists not in this duality.
Mercy is not the restraint of anger.
It’s the offering of the hand of love.
Offered from the awareness to the illusion.
Stripped of our apparent differences,
one divine spark offers understanding to another.
The hand offered is eternal,
​the foundation of our being.
The feeling of forgiveness may be confronted with the larger and more significant stumbles by our companions. As each person’s feeling of error may become more catastrophic and deluded, we find that we are transgressed by their actions. Their personal pain has overflowed into our lives.
From our feeling of forgiveness comes mercy. When transgressed, our first reaction might be to unwisely strike out against the transgressor. When we understand that all transgression is a direct of indirect call for a lost love or the anger over not being loved and valued, we view the transgressor differently. 
With this understanding, when we are in a position to strike out in retaliation, we stop. We express mercy instead. Mercy is not about right or wrong. It is not the holding back of your anger. There is no anger because you see through the transgressor’s illusion. 
Mercy is the offering of your hand. Stretching it out to reach from your awareness of truth, through their illusion about life, to their core inner goodness. The foundation of their being is reminded that they are eternal and full of value that should be cherished. 
Your action of mercy can open a window for another, so they may see the real world and know that there are others there to help.