A Note On Forgiveness

The American public is due for some awakening—a rebirth, a rejuvenation of a kind. Perhaps the chances for this over the past decade have arrived, have come and gone, have been pissed away. There is a feeling I sense that America has been in some long holding pattern, as though something needs to give, something needs to shake loose, needs to exit—so that a new atmosphere can be birthed, can take its place.

In a recent piece, Oh, America, I tried to relay some thoughts and even some feelings about America being on the brink of something, and that it is a (secular) spiritual crisis the country faces. There is little chance of success for describing such a thing with words—it is internal and external, it is in the air. But with every reckoning, with every atmospheric shift in tone and tenor, there must be a collective investigation—a country must ask itself how it got to where it is, and where does it allow itself to be led to, in a presumably new direction, with a new cast of leaders?

Donald Trump will, at some point, die. I say this not with a glimmer or glint in my eye, not with a grin, nor with any grand announcement of sadness—I simply state it plainly, as a fact. As simply as I may say of myself, that some day, at some point, I will die. And for that matter, you will, too.

I mention the inevitable death of the president for a reason—there is no doubt that if one were asked to name the person who has most dominated politics, culture, dialogue, and has touched virtually every facet of American life over the last decade, what name would come to mind?

The death of the president, and the presumable death of MAGA on some level, will not be, in and of itself, the “settling of the dust” from our past woes, our current anxious state—but rather an event that may function more like a vacuum—a hole will be created for new dialogue, new conversations. It is worth asking what those conversations may look like, how those conversations will form, evolve, and how they begin, what they will evolve into.

It is not uncommon, when surveying the landscape of political conversation, to find many Americans unable or unwilling to have dialogue with those who disagree with their politics—whether it be friends, family members, or potential members out of a dating pool. I find any support specifically for the president to be strictly prohibitive among some, while a similar disregard for anyone self-identifying as liberal or progressive exists.

However, the weight of this phenomenon is not dispersed equally—a liberal or progressive has not been the centerpiece of American policy or political dialogue—in that way, it may prompt one to ponder—What do we do with all that MAGA energy? What will Trump voters do or say when their visionary is no longer in the conversation?

Without a doubt, new leaders will emerge to take the president’s place—but they just won’t be Donald Trump, and in his absence, we may find that the tenor and tempo of our national dialogue has changed, even if his legacy rides steadily through politics from a strict policy standpoint.

Whatever the case, the center cannot hold—America is fatigued, breathless, exhausted. In many ways, this is a consequence of our leader’s breathlessness, his exhaustion, his fatigue, his chaos, the rapid-fire nature of his many concerns—in some ways, America cannot keep up with the 81-year-old on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps this is all well-known. But what I have written here so far is a throat-clearing for what I believe the country will truly need, and what I hear so very seldom.

The word that I am trying to get around to is forgiveness. I have not been able to do it naturally in this text—so I´ll just say it plainly—this country will need heaps of it.

If we find our dear leaders are not worthy of forgiveness, I think it necessary to forgive ourselves, however we may have voted, however we may sway politically, however we have changed our minds or not, or who we decided to trust or not, to forgive our fellow countrymen and women.

But what does it look like to forgive a country? To forgive a population? It cannot be done personally, but rather internally. The act of forgiveness is often necessary, not for the person being forgiven, but for the person who chooses to forgive. We forgive ourselves, in order to release from us the weight of anger, the weight of frustration, perhaps even the weight of betrayal.

America’s deepest problems are internal. We suffer very little from outside agitation as a nation, and in order to progress, we must find our capacity to love ourselves and our fellow citizens. This feels nearly impossible, grandiose, dreamlike, unnattainable. But as the conversation shifts, new possibilities come into play. America has no destiny, no guaranteed future. The success of America is not written in stone, nor is the fate that we are an empire destined for collapse. One of the greatest strengths of the spirit is the power to forgive—and I believe it is a key component to end our collective national spiritual crisis, our collective grief.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.