Those who live as The Unforgiven

Something has bugged me for some time. Like a gnawing itch I couldn’t scratch. Now I know what it is. Thankfully.

God led me to a song. Not a Christian song. But a sociological song. It is The Unforgiven by Metallica. I’ve loved the song and the band for years, but now it speaks with relevance to a piqued mind.

The lyrics for the song would be for many, dark. But they’re real! Reading the lyrics, I get the sense that this is a man’s life that is all too typical in a world where serial existential trauma impacts all men and women.

Sure, many adapt and learn their resilience, which is inspiring to think, if that’s you, you’re a world-beater.

But too many we know live as the unforgiven.

Too many live out of reach of God, who may think they’ll never be worthy, who may be seething about this scourge of a world or a ‘god’ that never protected them, who genuinely feel lonelier than they think anyone else lives. Too many have never measured up in the lives of their dearest kin. Twenty percent of the population with scars from childhood loss, abuse and trauma. So many who never adjusted. There’s the man who has unresolved anger issues that spoil his relationships whenever there is a second or sixty-second chance given; who has given up. Or, the woman who cannot resolve unrelenting loneliness, whether she’s in a relationship or not; who quietly despises this ‘man’s world’. And we can too easily, and unjustly, rationalise these responses as ‘they weren’t resilient enough’, or many other categories of ‘worse’.

If we truly reflect, we who engage with some kind of growth journey do not adroitly understand the person who feels they don’t fit into society. You may read this and think, “Hey, that’s me!” or you might think, “I get you; it’s not me.” If you’re part of this latter group, you have people in your life who do not fit. It’s the ache in your heart that they would. And it may frustrate you that they may not share that desire.

If we take The Unforgiven as an anthem for those who are displaced — those who may never have felt placed in the first place — we can begin to open our hearts to the idea that they may not want we want for them. Perhaps there are other steps beforehand.

They may wish simply to be understood,
and not to be ‘healed’.

They may simply want to be believed. Maybe they would take much less from us than we really want to give them. Maybe our fears that they may take too much are utterly unfounded. Maybe they don’t want what we think they want. But maybe they truly want something that they have no idea about yet. Perhaps that thing we also have no idea about. Maybe we’re all about to learn something.

I can think of people within my own family who would, in an honest moment, say that they cannot understand this world. Many of your families would be the same. Some of this sentiment sits within me! Some days I can tell you, I do seriously wonder. It’s probably a big part of why I’m a person of faith. I cannot do this life without God’s help. It’s as simple as that.

Those who live as The Unforgiven
live as unforgiven for a reason.
It’s for us to seek to understand.

The healing of God’s Holy Spirit that we’re all after is for someone in real living skin to get close enough to us, and, without being a threat or being threatened, show enough curiosity to simply understand, validate, believe.

Compassion is as simple as endeavouring to understand the other person. That is nothing if not a willingness to understand. God’s got the rest.

Living as forgiven is as simple as accepting we’re forgiven. But that’s a journey for us all in acceptance that leads to freedom.

Photo by Heng Films on Unsplash