Letter #136: Forgive the World
You've got to let go of the dark.
Dear best of all possible dads,
It’s funny, I was just at a wedding last week and the reading was one of my very favorites, Philippians 4: “rejoice in the Lord always.” A real all-timer, and it builds into this virtuoso list of excellent stuff to rejoice in: “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good report.” What’s not to love?
Strangely, though, I don’t think I ever noticed the verb that comes at the end of the list: “if there is anything excellent, anything worthy of praise—dwell on these things.” Dwell on them. The Greek word logizesthai means to contemplate, to take stock of, to ruminate on. Paul is literally telling the Philippians to “count their blessings” and “focus on the positive.”
Why? Everything is broken! Paul is in chains, condemned to death. Nothing he can say will change that. The donation the Philippians sent him won’t commute his sentence. And again he says: rejoice.
The cheap version of this is to pretend it’s all fine: I’ve got Jesus, so nothing hurts. But Paul is saying almost the opposite: everything hurts, but I’ve got Jesus. If you can see how warped things are, that means you can see how beautiful they’re supposed to be. If you can see that the world has been disfigured, you can see that it was beautiful to begin with. And if you can see that, you can dwell on it.
Not that the bad stuff will change if you ignore it. But the good stuff will change you if you focus on it. God knows evil is real enough—so real you can stew in it if you choose, fondling your grudges and wallowing in ugliness. That void will suck you in deep if you let it.
But there is another option, which the Gospels call aphesis. We usually translate it as “forgiveness.” What it literally means is “letting go.” It sounds strange, but to live in joy, you have to forgive the world. You have to see the darkness for what it is, and then you have to let that darkness go.
So I think I finally understand Paul when he tells the Philippians he’s grateful for their gifts, “not because I desire your gifts. What I desire is that more be credited to your account.” He’s glad not because the Philippians have given him stuff, but because they’ve started to get it: letting go of their indignation at the world, and loving love for its own sake, will change them.
Paul still died, and eventually so did the Philippians. So will we. But a gift is a gift, even in the valley of death. Once you start to dwell on this, the gifts are everywhere—things so true, and pure, and lovely, they make the world of good account.
Paul’s fixation on these things was enough to tunnel him through his prison walls and out the other side of death. “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation,” he wrote. The secret was this: he had forgiven the world. And what he had forgiven, he had overcome.
Love,
Spencer
 | A guest post by
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My entire adult life I’ve simultaneously been optimistic and pessimistic.
The terrorists are attacking, but the west has a strong military.
The race hustlers are lying, but the people see past it.
There’s a secret government ushering in a new world order, but honest revolutionaries are banding together under the constitution.
When I stare into the abyss, I admit I shudder, but when I live locally, I can’t help but rejoice.
I think very often it comes down to pride standing in our way of forgiveness…leading us to hold on to our grudges, nurse our hurts, and resent others (or the world itself) for the impact they’ve had on us.
It’s pride, and the entitlement that stems from it…and the answer requires both meditating on the good *and* subsuming the ego — we must understand that we aren’t owed a pain-free life, that God is at the helm not us, and that our own tiny wants aren’t relevant in the grand scheme of things.