There’s something about the word forgive, and the diversity of its definitions, that has long felt difficult for me to compute.

Forgive, of course, connotes something different – or maybe simply larger – than the partial synonyms pardon or erase; otherwise, we would all simply use those. And, recently, I’ve loved pondering the insight that rearranging this term’s syllables lends.

To forgive, one may posit, is to give over a grudge, hurt, or misunderstanding – not into some darkly mysterious or untrustworthy abyss – but to the only One with an overview and the only One who knows where everything and everyone belongs. For His/Her purpose.

Particularly when something seems too awful or to intractable to resolve, I’ve appreciated, today, feeling inspired to remember not to leave God out of the equation, so to speak, and recall the fruit borne by real leaders and teachers who chose to forgive, not by wasting difficulties, but by giving them over to God’s ability to transform, and the resultant, almost shocking, power of real forgiveness.

With regard to the theme of this blog, I’ve continued feeling struck by the level of self-sacrifice so many women expressed earlier during the women’s movement in order to expose corporate media business models’ posture toward concepts of equal opportunity & even human rights.

But, despite the Hollywood films with which Wall Street arguably capitulated, to a degree, I found it notable that it seemed the moment solutions were proposed, rather than taking so much as one beat to allow these ideas to be heard, it seemed to respond instead with a “why do you keep picking on us, when, as you know fully well, all we have ever cared about, ever since this afternoon, have been Black Trans People? Are you against Black Trans People or something?” And, of course, the answer is no. I believe it important to persist in raising the question of journalism funding mechanisms proposed prior to and during the women’s movement, in part, because I believe that what has been termed the new, “woke” (and, I would argue, fake-woke), cultural revolution has been largely insincere and, at its worst, little more than a desperate attempt to save the stock market’s relationship to the journalism sector (and maybe even all sectors). And, what’s more, I believe the country deserves to know this.

America’s founders were imperfect, obviously. But there is considerable merit, to say the least, to be acknowledged in their contributions as well. One could make the case, for example, that, despite his flaws, one of the things that made George Washington effective in a leadership position was his willingness to lay it down, rejecting the role of what could potentially have turned into little more than another king and asserting instead that the new democracy, for others’ (and perhaps his own) sake, deserved to be more of a nation of laws than of people. And I believe this observation to be relevant to the debate at hand; because those media corporations seeming to wield so much power over the country today appear to be doing practically the exact opposite by deliberately suppressing alternatives to their hegemony over the nation – not to serve others but, rather, to enrich and empower themselves instead – proving their lack of fitness for the positions of authority in which they seem to be attempting to ensconce themselves.

There is no question that corporations’ transition to advocacy for social justice concepts has accomplished good over the past several years. And, to the degree that this has been sincere, those involved deserve to be praised and thanked. (Even to the degree that this has been insincere and an attempt to avert more significant reform, everyone involved should be able to be forgiven; and all of the work that has been done can still be used for good.) But, it also matters why corporations, generally speaking, have done this, as it’s arguable that their funding mechanisms remain beneath the standard set forth in America’s founding documents.

As I’ve written before, while I believe it important to apply what’s been termed the Golden Rule to people, I question whether this standard should apply to corporations, which have tended historically – at least arguably – to exist largely for the purpose of masking and whitewashing abuse.

One thing I noted while in graduate school at a university with a remarkable honor code was that’s regulatory council required that offender attempts to make amends were, if I understood correctly, only considered mitigating factors if those who’d broken the code came forward about it before being caught. Sequence in this regard mattered, in other words; and, humbly, I feel it right to put forward the idea that sequence matters now, too.