In math and science this is done all of the time. You have different coordinate systems, or frames or reference, or numbers of dimensions, or whatever.

So if you can’t solve a problem in the system that you are trying to solve it in, you can map it into a different system and it becomes a different problem which you may know how to solve. Solve it in that system and map the solution back to the original frame of reference, and you have the answer.

You are talking about forgiveness. I found the same solution through compassion. Instead of looking at everyone as a problem to be solved, I looked at them as someone in need of understanding and compassion and tried to give it to them.

I don’t always try. I don’t always remember to try. I don’t always succeed when I do remember.

That’s why I need awareness. I need to be aware so that I can be compassionate.

Compassion can be as simple as listening to someone in a nonjudgmental way. It can be as simple as not arguing when you _know_ the other person is “wrong.” At its simplest it’s just remaining silent and paying attention.

There’s that awareness problem again. Paying attention is really, really difficult.

When I practice compassion I find that I lose my anger, I lose my impatience, I lose my despair. I gain calmness and peace.

Maybe compassion and forgiveness are kissing cousins.

When I quit looking at my own reflection and put more focus on the eyes of another forgiveness came. When you stand really close enough to a person to look them square in the eyes you see.

The whites reddened by sorrow, grief, or guilt. The tears brimming over and you catch your own little mirror in your own little hand and say forgive me.

It was always difficult for me to look someone in the eyes. Just seeing myself in that tiny black hole and just knowing that if a bright enough light shines the black hole gets smaller

Looking into the eyes of someone else and just seeing how small we are because in that tiny little mirror I don’t see blame I see me. We become one…shutting our eyes to what we see and embracing together who we know…we shut the door…separating and sending away every place we stepped out of line and just enjoying the love.

I had to stop starring and just hear. Yes we all need forgiveness and we all have to forgive…it’s a commmitment to relationship if I belong I want to be forgiven and I must forgive to be forgiven. I’m giving away what I want to receive what I need.

I’m a rationalist. I think that what is, is, and the way things are is the way things are.

What I’ve done, I’ve done. I’m a product of my genes, my upbringing, my culture. I’ve spent my life trying to develop a gnat of awareness about reality.

Given that I have absolutely no idea what is going on, and given that I’m trying to make the correct choice almost all of the time, the fact that I blow it a lot of the time does not mean that I’m in need of forgiveness.

I’m in need of greater awareness of what I’m doing.

And that is the great chasm over which I stare at the Christian world. I feel the same way about everyone else. They don’t need forgiveness. They need greater awareness.

I read the psalm, though. It’s so human and so beautiful. Whoever wrote the book of psalms was a great writer.