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VERGIFNIS



A Visitor

My father, for example,

who was young once

and blue-eyed,

returns

on the darkest of nights

to the porch and knocks

wildly at the door,

and if I answer

I must be prepared

for his waxy face,

for his lower lip

swollen with bitterness.

And so, for a long time,

I did not answer,

but slept fitfully

between his hours of rapping.

But finally there came the night

when I rose out of my sheets

and stumbled down the hall.

The door fell open

and I knew I was saved

and could bear him,

pathetic and hollow,

with even the least of his dreams

frozen inside him,

and the meanness gone.

And I greeted him and asked him

into the house,

and lit the lamp,

and looked into his blank eyes

in which at last

I saw what a child must love,

I saw what love might have done

had we loved in time.

Mary Oliver


... ek het gesien wat liefde kon gedoen het as ons betyds liefgehad het ...


Vergifnis is 'n moeilike ding. Ek wou eers skryf tricky - dis 'n tricky ding want dis kompleks, delikaat, sensitief, vernederend, maar ek het toe nie tricky geskryf nie, want dis alles behalwe skelm, glibberig, berekenend en al die ander goed wat ons met tricks assosieer. Dis nie 'n trick nie, dis 'n wonderwerk. Een waartoe ons geroep word.


Caroline Myss skryf:


"As appealing as forgiveness is in theory, it is an extremely unattractive personal action for most people, mainly because the true nature of forgiveness remains misunderstood. Forgiveness is not the same as telling the person who harmed you, “It’s okay,” which is more or less the way people view it. Rather, forgiveness is a complex act of consciousness, one that liberates the psyche and soul from the need for personal vengeance and the perception of oneself as a victim. More than releasing from blame the people who caused our wounds, forgiveness means releasing the control that the perception of victimhood has over our psyches.The liberation that forgiveness generates comes in the transition to a higher state of consciousness – not just in theory, but energetically and biologically. In fact, the consequence of a genuine act of forgiveness borders on the miraculous. It may, in my view, contain the energy that generates miracles themselves."


Iemand anders het gesê die daad van vergifnis is die naaste wat die mens aan God se natuur kan kom. En God is in ons en God se Liefde is in ons, maar vergifnis is gewoonlik so teen alles anders in ons - dit wat "reg" is, ons kultuur wat sê wat jy sal sal jy maai, input is output, 'n oog vir 'n oog (dis seker hoekom ons wêreld so blind is) en al die goed wat ek sonder handtekening onderskryf die hele week en dan miskien soms op 'n Sondag 'n vlugtige ander gewaarwording kry.


Ons gaan Sondag begin met 'n kort reeks oor die kortste boek in die Bybel: Filémon. Dis net 25 verse lank en tussen al Paulus se ander briewe is dit eintlik meer akkuraat om dit te bestempel as 'n poskaart. 'n Poskaart oor vergifnis. Paulus lewer 'n pleidooi vir 'n hoogs onwaarskynlike rekonsiliasie tussen twee mense - in die naam van Liefde.


Die liedjie van The Brilliance wat ons gereeld by InVia sing, se woorde som eintlik Paulus se kort brief, nog bondiger op:


Forgiveness is the garment

Of our courage

The power to make the peace

We long to know


Open up our eyes

To see the wounds that bind

All of humankind

May our shutter hearts

Greet the dawn of life

With charity and love


When I look into the face

Of my enemy

I see my brother


Vergifnis is die begin, die middel en die einde van die Evangelie. Sonder radikale, reëlbrekende, onberekende vergifnis - gegee én ontvang - sal niks ooit herstel, herenig, of nuut word nie.


Kom kuier Sondag saam 17:30 by 2 Derry rd, Rondebosch.

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