When I was a child, I used to hear my grandmother say, “I forgive you, but I am not going to forget.” I never thought too much of it because she was usually talking about the same people. They were always saying they were sorry for something. Most of the time in the middle of doing it again.

When I became an adult, I never gave it too much thought. Other than trying to think carefully so I did not have to say I was sorry. I saw it as futile if you expected the person to forget it, and less sincere if you were constantly saying. It did not dawn on me that I was putting undue restraints on myself. I became afraid to try or say anything that I could not be sure of. You are going to hurt someone no matter how hard you try. Some time you might not even know it.

I ran across a book entitled, Forgive Healing The Hurts We Don’t Deserve Forget, by Lewis B Smedes. I find myself going back to it time and time again when I need the power to forgive. Mainly chapter 6. Forgiving the Invisible People. “Some people invade our lives for a tragic hour or a sad lifetime, leave us with hurting memories, and then move away where we cannot see them. Or when they hide their faces behind the masks of corporations. People become invisible when they die before we can forgive them.”     

Our Creator has lessons for us that go beyond our earthly authors. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ God forgave you. If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. Bear with each other and forgive one another “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord how many times shall I forgive my brother and sister who sins against me? Up to seven times? Not seven times, but seventy-seven time. Matt 18:21-22

As a former middle grades teacher, mainly six grade males, I have had to tell them that their rights end where another person’s begin. I have even shown examples to no avail. I believe the lack of accepting this concept is the reason for many fights, even death. So I set out to find what others have said and written about it. No. I did not go to the library, I chose quorum to ask the question. I found that I did not need to ask. Others had already asked and a person named Chris Joossee had responded. I was taken in by it. I thought it should be shared.

It means they don’t occur in a vacuum, they occur in the context of interactions with others equally endowed with those same rights and obligations- and where they conflict, they must have limits.

The whole point to rights in the first place is to mediate conflict between rights-bearing actors, not to stipulate their existence in an abstract state that doesn’t model anyone else existing. If the only way we’re willing to conceive of rights is in abstract, absolute terms that fail to model the contingencies of other people also having rights, we tend to understand them in incomplete, self-serving ways.

This creates a tendency for us to relate to rights in terms of what they get us, without consideration for the responsibilities and obligations that they engender.

As a thought experiment, imagine a land of perfect freedom and natural rights, in which your liberty is absolute, nobody can stop you from exercising it. Now, imagine that there are other people out there in the same perfect land, also endowed with absolute, limitless liberty.

In this land, where everyone is perfectly free from restraint, what happens when my freedom to swing my arm has me swinging it through the space currently occupied by someone else’s nose? Is their claim to a right not to be hit in the nose compatible with my freedom to swing my arm?

If we understand the right-to-swing-my-arm in absolute, limitless terms, no. This must mean that it’s their obligation to take those punches in the face (because my right to swing my arm is sacrosanct, it’s my right). If we consider even briefly, it becomes clear that this model for rights (that I can do the thing I want without regard for consequences to others) creates a sort of tyranny for those upon whom the consequences fall.

While at Dover AFB, Delaware, I volunteered for every assignment that would take me off base. I volunteered for parasail training knowing that I could not swim, and was afraid of water. To no avail. The Army needed tail gunners for the Huey helicopter in Viet Nam. I didn’t get chosen. I volunteered to go to Viet Nam. This last one got me an appointment with the base commander.

I ironed my fatigues, with extra starch for the appointment. His office was across the base near the flight line. Too far to walk but not far enough to wait for the bus. Airman George reporting as ordered sir! “Are you some sort of mercenary? No sir, I just want to get off this base. There seems to be a suicide every month, and my barracks is next to the morgue. He said, “I got news for you airman, you are not going anywhere.”

I spent the next three years proving to him that I could get off the base. Not permanently, but a few months at a time. I went to Lajes Field, Azores for four months. I had about four hours notice and had to take a dose of about 10 shots. No one else wanted to go. The next assignment was three months to Rhein Mein AFB, Germany.

I grew up relying on others instead of the traditional family. This is just the opposite of what nature has put in place to create a healthy individual. I learned at an early age, by the grace of God to learn how to read, read good books and do it yourself books in order to navigate through life. Throughout life I searched for those people whom I could place in the position of mother, father, sister, and brother.

Everything I have done in my adult life has been done in a systematic fashion. When I graduated from high school, I knew I had to leave my birthplace. I did not see anything positive to stay. I knew I needed an education, but I did not have any money. This was in 1965, during the Vietnam Conflict. I had turned 18 and I knew I would be drafted in the Marines or the Army, so I volunteered for the United States Air Force. I did not want my life plans to be interrupted by the draft. Nor did I want to avoid my obligation.

Now it reminds me of the book of Genesis 12:1, Old Testament, Hebrew Bible, where the Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.” I can’t claim any religious epitome although it seems like I was being guided. After basic training in Texas, technical school in Illinois, and a brief time in Georgia, I ended up in Delaware. In addition to the men I worked with each day, my roommate’s family became my family. He was from Emporia, Virginia. I used to go to his house without him. His family was well liked, and his friends adopted me as their own.