Bring back The Eskimos!
Enough of the Colonial guilt and Indigenous pity! It’s time to “bury the hatchet” over the past and live in the glorious present of a multi-ethnic, multicultural Edmonton that embraces and welcomes everyone, with love. The Eskimo name was chosen to celebrate one of Canada’s northern peoples. Let’s recognize that by restoring North America’s most iconic team name – The Eskimos. If elected to the O-day’min Ward, which is an Anishinaabe word associated with forgiveness, I will urge council to pass a resolution asking Edmonton’s CFL team to become The Eskimos, again.
… and speaking of forgiveness
There are some that say our whole purpose in being here, or at least our ability to live life to the full, is found in forgiveness. Here’s a poem “Mitsakes” that deals with letting the past go, by Kenniit T Forgach, from, I believe, his book of poems “Enough is Enough” that talks about overcoming addiction and living the more “abundant life” that Jesus spoke of.
As Jesus says in John 10:10 (KJV)
The thief [addiction, seeking outside yourself?] cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
A spiritual understanding of forgiveness
Who are we to each other, really? Do we live in a world where we can be the victim of others, beset with illness or wracked with illness? Many of us believe this is so and, if true, it is indeed a cruel world. They also tend to believe that any interpretation that suggests otherwise is insane.
But there is another interpretation to life’s experience and I invite you, for just a moment, to consider that possibility and read on.
A careful reading of spiritual texts, including the Bible, will reveal an understanding that we are not separate but united as a whole expression of a first Cause of awareness, that you might call God, if you wish, that is beyond all labels and is formless. You are its immediate Effect, a totally abstract, eternal Thought expression of Being that has no opposite.
This entire world, and all its seemingly weighty consequences, is nothing more than a delusional experience of the idle thought, “What would it be like to be separate?” While this world is a constantly changing, ever shifting illusion, Reality, what You Are never changes.
A Course in Miracles, expands on forgiveness in one of its lessons.
Lesson 134
Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
1. Let us review the meaning of “forgive,” for it is apt to be distorted and to be perceived as something that entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. ²In such a view, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appear to rest salvation on a whim.
2. This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected, when you can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. ²It must be limited to what is false. ³It is irrelevant to everything except illusions. ⁴Truth is God’s creation, and to pardon that is meaningless. ⁵All truth belongs to Him, reflects His laws and radiates His Love. ⁶Does this need pardon? ⁷How can you forgive the sinless and eternally benign?
3. The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is that you still believe you must forgive the truth, and not illusions. ²You conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to overlook the truth, in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true. ³This twisted viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet upon your mind, as you regard yourself.
4. Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception. ²For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness is a lie. ³Thus is forgiveness really but a sin, like all the rest. ⁴It says the truth is false, and smiles on the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as white as snow. ⁵It is delusional in what it thinks it can accomplish. ⁶It would see as right the plainly wrong; the loathsome as the good.
5. Pardon is no escape in such a view. ²It merely is a further sign that sin is unforgivable, at best to be concealed, denied or called another name, for pardon is a treachery to truth. ³Guilt cannot be forgiven. ⁴If you sin, your guilt is everlasting. ⁵Those who are forgiven from the view their sins are real are pitifully mocked and twice condemned; first, by themselves for what they think they did, and once again by those who pardon them.
6. It is sin’s unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. ²It does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and gently lays them at the feet of truth. ³And there they disappear entirely.
7. Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. ²It sees their nothingness, and looks straight through the thousand forms in which they may appear. ³It looks on lies, but it is not deceived. ⁴It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. ⁵It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, “My brother, what you think is not the truth.”
8. The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth. ²It is because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies; the great restorer of the simple truth. ³By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth, which has been blocked by dreams of guilt. ⁴Now are you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to you. ⁵For if one brother has received this gift of you, the door is open to yourself.
9. There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and perceive it open wide in welcome. ²When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self-deception. ³Ask instead, “Would I accuse myself of doing this?”
10. Thus will you see alternatives for choice in terms that render choosing meaningful, and keep your mind as free of guilt and pain as God Himself intended it to be, and as it is in truth. ²It is but lies that would condemn. ³In truth is innocence the only thing there is. ⁴Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth; between the world you see and that which lies beyond; between the hell of guilt and Heaven’s gate.
11. Across this bridge, as powerful as love which laid its blessing on it, are all dreams of evil and of hatred and attack brought silently to truth. ²They are not kept to swell and bluster, and to terrify the foolish dreamer who believes in them. ³He has been gently wakened from his dream by understanding what he thought he saw was never there. ⁴And now he cannot feel that all escape has been denied to him.
12. He does not have to fight to save himself. ²He does not have to kill the dragons which he thought pursued him. ³Nor need he erect the heavy walls of stone and iron doors he thought would make him safe. ⁴He can remove the ponderous and useless armor made to chain his mind to fear and misery. ⁵His step is light, and as he lifts his foot to stride ahead a star is left behind, to point the way to those who follow him.
13. Forgiveness must be practiced, for the world cannot perceive its meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence. ²There is no thought in all the world that leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought that it reflects. ³It is as alien to the world as is your own reality. ⁴And yet it joins your mind with the reality in you.
14. Today we practice true forgiveness, that the time of joining be no more delayed. ²For we would meet with our reality in freedom and in peace. ³Our practicing becomes the footsteps lighting up the way for all our brothers, who will follow us to the reality we share with them. ⁴That this may be accomplished, let us give a quarter of an hour twice today, and spend it with the Guide Who understands the meaning of forgiveness, and was sent to us to teach it. ⁵Let us ask of Him:
⁶Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
15. Then choose one brother as He will direct, and catalogue his “sins,” as one by one they cross your mind. ²Be certain not to dwell on any one of them, but realize that you are using his “offenses” but to save the world from all ideas of sin. ³Briefly consider all the evil things you thought of him, and each time ask yourself, “Would I condemn myself for doing this?”
16. Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. ²And now you are prepared for freedom. ³If you have been practicing thus far in willingness and honesty, you will begin to sense a lifting up, a lightening of weight across your chest, a deep and certain feeling of relief. ⁴The time remaining should be given to experiencing the escape from all the heavy chains you sought to lay upon your brother, but were laid upon yourself.
17. Forgiveness should be practiced through the day, for there will still be many times when you forget its meaning and attack yourself. ²When this occurs, allow your mind to see through this illusion as you tell yourself:
³Let me perceive forgiveness as it is. ⁴Would I accuse myself of doing this? ⁵I will not lay this chain upon myself.
⁶In everything you do remember this:
⁷No one is crucified alone, and yet no one can enter Heaven by himself.