Forgiveness, part 2

 Forgiveness, part 2 

“So,” Roz said. “How many learned about forgiveness this morning?”
     I had been delegated to church while she and Uncle Albert stayed home to tune in the (what would be massively disappointing) Arsenal-Tottenham fixture. (The match ended in a draw after a certain amount of luck on Tottenham’s behalf and the usual fussy shillyshallying from Arsenal: sixteen passes, advance an inch and a half, retreat.)
     “7,” I said. “I’ve had some grief about that post, incidentally,” meaning last week’s on forgiveness. “Apparently, at least according to many, forgiveness is not a virtue belonging to Christians as if no other could possess or exercise it.”
     “Oh!” Roz said, drawing it out, making the long-o as long as she could.

Uncle Albert has the good for-
tune to nap while Arsenal pass
the ball around going nowhere.

“Oh, indeed!” Uncle Albert shortened it considerably. “But did any of those many others read today’s lessons?” Which he had apparently, because he went on to enumerate, “the warnings against elevating fairness above . . . well, unfairness. How Jonah can’t stand it that God forgives the Ninevites, who don’t even believe in him, not to mention all the wickedness they — and their animals — are always up to. And how the diligent workers from morning to night can’t stand it that the dozy late-comers are paid as much as they are: generosity should have its limits, to be fair.”
     “So,” Roz said, picking up where she left off, ignoring Uncle Albert. “Only seven heard the lessons. Are the rest, however many billions, unable to forgive because they didn’t hear them?”
     “8.1,” Uncle Albert said. “8.1 billions minus 7 . . . individuals. And no, they aren’t unless they are willing to give up fairness for . . . .” He hesitated.
     “Unfairness?” Roz asked.
     “Yes,” Uncle Albert said. “Exactly. As I said.”

Later, before the half but after Roz had disappeared, he said to me, “Unless they can embrace unfairness. Be as unfair as God is unfair both to the Ninevites and to Jonah.”
     Later still, as the match was drawing to its untidy close: “After Christianity — even now — the obsession is with Justice. Capital-J. And It — capital-I — can’t let anything go because It has to take Everything into account.”
     (The capital E is mine though it is what I heard.)

At the close of the match, he blew a raspberry. Then he said, “What’s for lunch, do you think? And when?”
                                                                           09.26.23