Forgiveness is an interesting topic, one that is singularly easy to understand, yet wrought with complexity the second one adds the human condition to the equation. Jesus tells us to forgive until it hurts, and then do it some more. There is no forgiveness statute of limitations. I would think the reason we have to forgive so much, so often is because God forgives. Would it be fair if He forgave the thief the first three times, but didn’t the fourth? We would all be in a heap of trouble if that were so. Our duty to forgive always, is representative of the endless capacity for God to forgive us all. I think that is pretty deep.
If we look at ourselves in the mirror and see the reflection, who are we looking at? The person who is guilty of making mistakes, or the person who doesn’t make any? Kind of an interesting exercise. Catholics often self-brand themselves, and each other as guilty of sin, sometimes in a comical way; there are many jokes that go along with that idea. There is also often a sliver of truth in most jokes. The case holds true here, a sliver of truth in all of us being guilty. Well, being loosely affiliated with Catholicism, Lutheran’s can own some of those same jokes, even if we Lutheran’s don’t own the market on jokes about guilt. Why is that? Why do people feel guilty? I would say the reason is that because we are humans created by God, we all (should) feel guilt if we kill someone, if we do anything out of the will of God. If it feels like I have gotten off track with forgiveness, I apologize, but I think no conversation of forgiveness can be had without mentioning guilt. I was guilty today. I need to ask God for forgiveness by confessing to Him what I did wrong, and what I did wrong, and wasn’t aware of. As a Christian, I need to go before the lord, and ask him to forgive me. There is a song by country western singer Randy Travis titled “I’m gonna have a little talk with Jesus”, it is one of my favorites. It talks about guilt, and the restored relationship with God each time he prays. It’s a great tune, and if you like genre of music, I would guess you’ll like it too. I would even think if you didn’t like the genre of music, you might like it. I digress.
I think the capacity to forgive is more for the person who forgives, than for the person receiving forgiveness. “What?!” you say. Yes, that’s what I think. Take for example the real story of my mother, born in 1938, in Germany. A quick run through of your history, and you would find that time frame had her squarely involved in WWII, even though she was just a child. She has vivid memories of the war, tragic, and traumatic memories. In fact the village she grew up in has memorials with the names of all the men who died during WWI and WWII. This is a village that has what looks to be thousands of names. Can you imagine? Sparing the details, she and her friends had a choice to make when the war ended: forgive or don’t forgive. I know some of her friends that did not forgive, and sadly they have lived what I would call bankrupt lives; angry (and rightly so) about the loss, the memories, the trauma. I get the impression some her friends still harbor a good deal of anger that they took to their graves. My mom, bless her heart, chose to forgive, to let go, to not harbor the anger and frustration. She never forgot, but she never let the pain rule her life either. She made a conscious decision to let it go, to forgive. She has been a happier, healthier person for it.
I have taken the lesson that my mom taught me, and applied it to my own guilt complex. We all make mistakes, some small, others incomprehensible. My own view of the world is that we all let people down, we do horrible things to each other in the name of power, greed, money, and revenge to name but a few. It doesn’t’ matter as to the reasons why we do things, but the fact remains that we do. We are also capable of amazingly beautiful things, gestures to our fellow people, acts of kindness. It often goes un-reported, un-rewarded. Why is that? The good we do often flies under the radar. That may be a post in of itself, but to be honest, good doesn’t sell news papers.
I could spend the rest of my life describing the frailty of the human condition, but I’d rather take the guilt that comes from doing wrong, drop to my knees, and ask forgiveness, and live in the promise that I’m forgiven. Why? The simple answer is that I can’t control what others do or think. I can influence, but I can’t control. I can, however, control what I do, and what I think. When I make mistakes I can ask the lord to show me the error in my ways. I have the power to forgive, even if I don’t know how to. I have the power of a relationship with God. That is the most important thing, my relationship with God. I guess the bottom line is that a person could do a lot to me, and I hope I have the capacity to forgive. If I don’t then God and I have something to work on, and God doesn’t leave unfinished business.
Our ability and capacity to forgive is only limited by our relationship with God, or our willingness to seek the lord for guidance. He gave my mom the ability to change her mind. That act alone, one that she has spent her life working on, has freed her to be happy. We must also forgive, as that allows us to be forgiven. It would be difficult for me to ask for forgiveness if I harbored anger towards people that ‘Did me wrong!’ I would simply be an angry person without hope of something better. Being angry isn’t a good way to go about living. Being a Christian isn’t a guarantee of an easy life. Far from it. The ability to forgive is a difficult task, but if God tells us to forgive without limit, I’d be hard pressed to argue that he’s wrong. I can say this from personal experience, that life is better when you take the time to forgive.
© 2012 Kurt Alderman, The Jimmy Monologues
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Forgiving to make ourselves feel better? I wasn’t aware that god endorsed that.
Personally, I like to advocate for non-forgiveness. If you “forgive” someone (including, at times, yourself) without sincerely feeling that forgiveness within, chances are you will be just as hurt/angry/depressed as ever– only now you’ve let the harmer off the hook. In that vein, I find that many Christians’ forgiveness results in a lack of accountability. If we forgive someone (whether to make ourselves feel better or because we believe that person “needs” it) without a sense of justice, it frees that person to commit the same wrong again.
I agree that forgiveness is a tricky subject. Which is why I reject Christianity’s constant badgering about the need to forgive; it’s too one dimensional. Then again, I guess for me it is easier to deny the obligation to forgive, since I don’t believe in a god who requires it of me or anyone else.
Skyride, this is a very insightful comment on the Christian notion of forgiveness. Thank you. There are a number of small observations I would like to offer in return. One is always at liberty to reject faith, and (with particular reference to Christianity) the religious understanding of forgiveness. Yet, speaking from within the Christian Tradition, it may be countered that the grace of forgiveness is not about letting the offender “of the hook.” The proverbial hook upon which we all ultimately hang is that of our own conscience. We must trust that even the most despicable of crimes are perpetrated by human beings who have a conscience; albeit a conscience that is weak, damaged or ill informed. Within the Christian understanding of forgiveness it is a matter of the victim freeing him or herself of the rage, frustration and anxiety of victimhood in the faith that it is God who is the final arbiter of history.
God, who in his humanity, is a fellow-traveller on the road of suffering shares with us our victimhood, and thus walks even with the perpetrator as both prosecution and defence on their journey to redemption. This journey is not the concern of the forgiveness of the victim; forgiveness is a grace for the interiority of the victim. It is liberation from the slavery that is suffering. “Christianity’s constant badgering about the need to forgive” is the unending call of the Gospel that we should be free.
And if by my forgiveness I set “set someone free” who has denied my freedom by their actions…alas, that isn’t something I put value in. Though I admit I am personally more likely to forgive the person who has accountability, and who has endured the consequences of their actions. I suppose that is what it comes down to for me: accountability.
But this is not what I said. The one who is ‘set free’ by forgiveness is the forgiver. Forgiveness is not a miscarriage of justice; as justice has its own demands. One may forgive someone and still see that person brought to account. In this regard we must distinguish between forgiveness and justice.
If the forgiver is set free, then again: I don’t believe in forgiving for our own sake. I guess I just don’t believe in forgiving to make anyone feel better. Forgiving for the forgiver, forgiving for the forgivee, forgiving for forgiveness itself; I guess I don’t put a whole lot of stock in forgiveness, but in justice, as you say.
If we carry this idea; of a world without forgiveness, to its logical end then we can see a world wherein such ideas of debt forgiveness are unimaginable. What one cannot do is ‘force’ another to forgive. This would be absurd. For my part, however, I can only see a dim landscape in a world bereft of forgiveness.
But why do we need to conceptually frame it so, as forgiveness? It seems to me that there are different kinds of forgiveness, where forgiving a person’s debts (the so-called Dutch version of the Lord’s Prayer, right– “forgive your debtors”?), which implies that someone is owed something, departs from forgiveness of an offense which can never be “made up” to us. Ah, but now I tread on the thin ice of subjectivity.
We are all on that thin ice of subjectivity. Much of what we do in offending others is commit a something which can never be made up or atoned for. Here I think of the tale of the rabbi who was the victim of gossip. The guilty party, realising the error they had made, went to ask the forgiveness of the teacher. This rabbi said that of course he would forgive the offence so long as the gossip went and tore open a pillow and cast all the feathers to the wind. Once all of the feathers had been gathered again and put back into the pillow the deed would be forgiven. The Christian idea of forgiveness is one which acknowledges that the feathers may never been gathered, but in forgiving the deed something more precious may be again restored; the peace of mind of the sufferer. The hurt may remain, true, but the shadow of the deed has been removed.
Skyride thank you for commenting, and I’m happy to offer my view. Christian or otherwise, most people can sniff out an apology that isn’t legitimate. Forgiveness is not an exchange whereby I have permission to do harm, then offer an apology that must be accepted simply because God requires that it be accepted, thus leaving me off the hook. I think the idea of forgiveness is almost as much about the journey as it is the destination. If someone did something to one of my children, I’m pretty sure I’d have a lifelong battle trying to forgive, and it would be to my amazement if I actually got there. In fact, I might not display the courage my mother displays daily, but at least I could be certain that I’d be working on it, with Gods help. I won’t presume to make assumptions about anyones life experiences, but in my lifetime, I have enough personal, anecdotal, and circumstantial evidence to justify my position: people that have the ability to forgive are happier, and healthier. Forgiveness can take a lifetime to master.
I’m sorry you feel the Christian idea of forgiveness is one dimensional. I think it is one of the more complex and interesting issues people deal with due to the complexity of the human condition.
Often when people think about forgiveness, they try to visualize the most extreme circumstances in which it would be difficult to forgive: someone killing your children or parents, for example. The ability to “move on”, accepting reality and coming to terms with one’s own feelings– these are things I place a high value on. I think these are things you’re hinting at. Forgiveness is connected to these, but is ultimately superfluous. Saying, “It’s cool, dude”, to the person who ruined your newest outfit or “It’s okay” to the significant other who lied to you– these qualify as forgiveness, yes, and letting go of small grudges in quotidian life I believe can make us happier. But forgiving in “extreme” circumstances (which are subjective of course)– does not indicate that anything is “okay” or even resolved, but at least that a person can reconcile themselves to their new reality. I can accept this conception of forgiveness, but don’t see it as necessary. If someone murdered your children and you couldn’t forgive them– more power to you; sometimes absence of forgiveness is more empowering than forgiving.
Yet forgiving such extreme events, in the Christian sense, is not the same as saying that it is ‘okay.’ This is a misunderstanding. Murder, under no circumstance, is okay. This is both naïve and absurd. In its most rudimentary and biblical sense the nuance is precisely that of allowing someone else (God) bear the weight of vengeance. It is to say that the victim, who can forgive (and certainly no easy thing to do), is unburdening themselves of the will to vengeance; a drive which is both psychologically and socially very destructive.