Osler's Razor

Today is the holiday on which we celebrate love. Real love, of any kind, is hard if it is to endure. The most difficult part, as I have written before, is forgiveness. True grace is very hard to dispense, because it means giving up our own legitimate feelings of hurt. And how do you do that, exactly?

In the people I admire most, it seems to be by literally forgetting the wrongs they have suffered. I don't know how they accomplish this, but it is as if their hurt has gone away completely, somehow. Can faith do that? Christ tells us to forgive not once or twice, but 7 times 70 times. Is that a reasonable thing to ask, given the hurt involved?

I don't have a sensible answer to that, but much of what Christ taught does not comport easily with what we think of as common sense. Jesus not only challenged his society, but each of us to do things the hard way.

Love, of any kind, hurts sometimes. And if it doesn't hurt, perhaps it is not really love.