The world contains only one thing that is truly novel, forgiveness. Everything else is an old tape repeating itself endlessly over and over again. There is normally only one song that gets sung: betrayal-hurt-resentment-non-forgiveness. That pattern never changes. There is an unbroken chain of unforgiven resentment and anger stretching back to Adam and Eve.

We are all part of that chain. Everyone is wounded and everyone wounds. Everyone sins and everyone is sinned against. Everyone needs to forgive and everyone needs to be forgiven.

Betrayal is an archetypal structure within the human soul, just as sin is innate within the human condition. We, all of us, betray and sin. We betray ourselves, betray our loved ones, betray our communities, and sin against our God. Everyone stands in need of forgiveness.

But we are also, each one of us, betrayed and sinned against. We are betrayed by our loved ones, by churches, by our communities, and, in a manner of speaking, even by our God. It is not for nothing that, on the cross, Jesus, incarnating there all that is human, cries out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” We all feel betrayed at that deep level sometimes. Hence, as badly as we need to be forgiven, we also need to forgive. In forgiveness lies the difference between the choice for suicide and the choice for life.