In a perfect world, I believe would be possible for us to say “I forgive you,”  and we would be able to forget the whole thing ever happened. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect word.

Granted, there are times when we forgive and the “sin”  is so small we do actually seem to forget it. I suppose the reason being is the sin didn’t affect us much emotionally, physically, mentally, or spiritually. The process is so short, we don’t even recognize that there was a process.

However, in most cases we are hurt in one or more of these five areas in a significant way, and we can’t just simply forget the pain and injury the sin has caused.  Because we have been hurt,  it would seem natural that we would need to go through a process of healing,  which we all know takes time.

While pondering the meaning of forgiveness, I discovered to forgive, really doesn’t mean to forget. It means to let go of the desire to punish a person for their sin or offense. So to me the first step in forgiveness would be the desire not to punish the sinner.

But, something seems to be lacking in this first step. Wouldn’t the sinner also have to be sorry for the pain and hurt they caused and desired to be forgiven?  For forgiveness can’t truly occur if the sinner doesn’t care what pain  his/her actions have caused or actually takes pleasure in his/her sins.  Just as forgiveness  cannot occur if the victim has no desire but to get even or punish.

So if forgiveness is a process, what would be the next step?  Perhaps, both parties recognizing that the sin has damaged the relationship; it is not longer the same as it was before the sin. For this reason, trust may have to be re-earned and lines of communications need to restored… and that this is a consequence of the sin and not a punishment.

Finally, the would most likely be a realization that to heal it is going to take time. And, despite our best efforts, there may be scars left by the sin; residual reminders of the damage caused by the sin. Or in other words, the sin is not forgotten. However, if there is true forgiveness the desire punish is gone.

Does this work in a real life situation?  I decided to take Tiger Woods and his wife Elin’s current situation after his affair. Tiger has to be truly sorry for his affairs and honestly recognize the damage his actions have cause in his marriage. He also must his desire to be forgiven. Elin, on her part, has to find that love she may have for Tiger and desire not to punish him for the affairs in order to forgiveness to even begin. Then both must recognize that Tiger is going to have to re-earn his wife’s trust and that the physical, emotional, spiritual, and emotional wounds run deep. There is going to take time to work through those issues. Even if Elin and Tiger can work through Tigger’s affairs, there will always be that scar left over. Perhaps my theory works…

Some of you will say well this is a Christian blog and what about God’s forgiveness. Doesn’t God forget our sins the moment we are sorry? I think God does forget our sins. But we as human beings still have to go through the process.

While God is ready to not punish us for our sins because of God’s incredible love for us, we still need to recognize the damage our sin created and be sorry for that damage. We also have to be honest that we have altered the relationship with God because of our sin, and that we will need to change to restore that relationship. Usually, it is allowing ourselves to believe God truly loves us enough to forget our sin no matter how large it is. Again, it looks like a process…

I am not providing the names, dates, location, and other details in order to protect those involved. Also because I heard this third hand but know the source is accurate.

Many fear a government run insurance… Are private companies any better?

Naturally, I would have to watch the Olympic Men’s Competition and the drama after the medals were rewarded. A lot has been in the press and on TV with sound bites and analysis of with Evan Lysacek performance and  Evgeni Plushenko’s performance. Like many I believe Evan earned the Gold medal and Evgeni earned the silver.

However, I don’t want to rehash what has been said by Lysacek and Plushenko, their fans and critics, the news media and their analysists. Rather I would like to comment on what both men did and how they have handled things after the medals were awarded.

Both men had a goal. Both wanted the Gold Medal. They both worked in different ways to achieve that goal. Lysacek worked with the goal to perfect himself and hopefully skate his best program. Plushenko also challenge himself by coming out of retirement, retraining his body to do things it hadn’t done for years, and perfecting his ability to do one of the most difficult jumps in figure skating.

There could only be one man who would be able to achieve that goal. Both skaters knew this going into the competition. What one man did that the other did not was prepare themselves for that on that night, was the possibility he would not win the gold. Now he is faced with the reality. Rather than accepting he did not win the Gold, but succeeded in so many other ways, he focuses on what he didn’t achieve.

How many times in our own lives, we fail to look at what we did achieve and focus on what we didn’t achieve. How many times do we look for an excuse outside ourselves to rationalize why we didn’t we achieve our goal, when in truth our effort simply didn’t have what was necessary to achieve it that day?

Further research on the details left me in spinning in physic terms I haven’t heard in over 20 years. As I dug deeper into the physics I realized how far my engineering background had atrophied to a dust speck.

“So where to go with this,” I sit here wondering at the keyboard.

I found it interesting that some scientists actually believe that at the beginning of the universe, various laws of physics seem to fall apart and there was a time when time didn’t exist.

So does this mean that time and the laws of physics were created?

If that was the case, could a “supreme being” create those laws and structure them in such a way that this primordial atom could explode, change into hundreds of different types of atoms, combine in such a way to create planets, suns, which then would combine into something that would become a biological life form know a single cell organism. That one or more of these single cells would change into a multi-celled organism, and later over time evolve into creatures like you and me? Or did we just get lucky?

Making my way around the channels, I went through the Fox, CNN, MSN…political rhetoric channels, and then hit the Sunday televangelist string. I saw the gambit from the sitting at the desk interjecting thoughts and theology to the take off his coat, loosen the tie, and repeat yourself over and over until the faithful are on their feet with hands in the air.

The second reading (1 Cor 12:12-30 or 12:12-14, 27) spoke to me because the polarization I saw on television that day. The political parties saying the other is responsible for the problems our country is experiencing, and how they are going to correct things. Meanwhile we have people making faith in God purely and intellectual experience or purely emotional experience.

Paul writes to a divide body of believers in Corinth with various groups wanting to do without another group. Each group, I am certain, believed that they had all the right answers… Paul, in his letter, tries to correct this strife by telling them they “together” make up the body of Christ. The body functions its best when all the parts work together.

I wonder how much better shape our country would be if we took this Christian principle of burying our selfish pride,  and realized the only way we are going to make this country better is working together.

Personally I was disappointed that the Catholic Church would have a strong response to the movie. So I read the article to see why supposedly the church had issues with the movie.

Doing some research tonight I did discover that the local paper took an Associated Press article and put their own spin on the title. The locals chose to use the word scorn will the Hollywood Reporter use the word “criticizes.”

Perhaps this is a case of which sells more papers without alienating readers. Yes, even the news papers are influenced on how they report the news by the need for money.  However, you can’t stay in business if you don’t make money… but I digress.

Theologically , it makes sense that a monotheistic religion would object to the  a movie that has its main characters worshiping nature and makes it look attractive. (In fact one of the major characters converts to nature worship because of its attractions.)  A natural response in my opinion. Especially in the light of what a work of fiction such as the The Da Vinci Code did to shake the faith of Catholics as well as other Christians.

The Catholic Church is simply saying, in my opinion, remember what your faith is about.  We believe nature is God’s creation, entrusted into our stewardship. We do not believe nature is God.

At the same time it seems both Cameron and the Catholic Church do agree that ecology is something important. Pope Benedict has emphasize our responsibility to take care of our environment.

So what did I learn from all of this…?

Definition: God an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnipotent (all-powerful, everywhere, and all-knowing) being that loves humans and wants us to be happy.

Question: So why doesn’t God answer prayers the way we want them to be answered?

Premise: God can’t answer all prayers the way we want them to turn out without radically changing the world.

Argument: Imagining 20 people applying for a job with a small mom and pop store. Each one prays that they be the one to get that particular job. Unless God somehow grows the business within a very short time so that it needs all the applicants immediately for the same job, there is no way those 20 people can all get the job. There would also be a chain of consequences that would affect others in negative ways.

Question: So is it useless for those 20 people to pray because there is a 95% chance they are not getting the job?

Answer: There is a five percent chance they will have the prayer answered.

Assumption: They need to understand they might not get the job, and God, for some reason decided that they shouldn’t get the job.

Question: Wouldn’t it be better for each person to pray that the best  person gets hired for the job?

Answer: It certainly would put the person in the state of mind of allowing God’s will to be done.

Question: Your answer seems to show that we can somehow limit God’s power to do something. Are you saying God is not omnipotent?

Answer: There is a difference between having the  power to do something, and deciding not to do something.

Question: Why would God, who is loving, not force his will into a situation?

Answer: Using the God definition, God is also all-knowing. Since we are an emotional being with pride and other emotions, forcing God’s will could have negative outcome. An all-knowing being should foresee this outcome and would not force God’s will out of love.

To be continued…

Now I know there are young eyes might be looking at this…and some that might be even offended that a man who claims to be a Catholic would even write about such a topic. Especially since we have had the priest scandal…

My goal is not to offend or defend or seduce or harp on the fact that sex is how people reproduce.

My question is why are you reading this?

I realize this question can be taken many different ways. I don’t wish to offend or alienate. I am curious on the reason(s) why you choose to read this post with this title.

Maybe it is just me, but seem to me that there is a dark side in venting. There are times when I vent it  isn’t so much a sharing of feelings, but an effort to get people to side with me. The vent is more of sell job why so and so is  bad or wrong.

It also can be, for me, an avoidance of dealing with the situation. Ok, I told someone else about the situation and now they can do the confronting for me.

Like many things, there are times when something that is healthy can become unhealthy.