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Bonds that
Make Us Free, Part 35: Forgiving, Forgoing and Living Free
by C. Terry
Warner
Forgiveness:
Correctly Understood
The
process by which we open ourselves to the reality of others and
thereby undergo a profound personal change can properly be called
"forgiveness." Why so?
In a class I
was teaching twenty years ago, an older, very concerned woman raised
an issue about forgiveness she said had been bothering her all her
adult life. She said: "If you forgive somebody, you more or
less say, 'There's something that person needs to be blamed for,
something he's done wrong to me, but I'm a big enough person to
overlook it.' You have to keep in mind what they've done wrong or
else you don't have anything to overlook. So you can't forgive and
forget, can you? You have to remember the wrong they've done. That
doesn't seem to be very charitable. So I don't understand forgiveness.
I've always been suspicious when people say they forgive."
This comment
exposes a flaw in our ordinary, self-betraying way of thinking about
forgiveness. This woman was right to say that we do not, we cannot,
accuse someone in our heart and at the same time forget about the
wrong we're accusing them of doing. The best we can do, as long
as we continue to accuse, is to counterfeit a pardon for them and
try our best not to think about what they have done.
But overlooking
or "letting pass" a grievance or an offense does not qualify
as forgiveness. Forgiveness is something else entirely.
First, forgiveness
responds to the real issue, the real reason why we have felt offended.
And the real reason, as we know, is not any wrong that others have
done to us, but the wrong we are doing to them. Forgiveness
concerns our wrongdoing, not theirs. And our wrongdoing
includes our failure to treat them as we ought, our finding them
at fault for this failure, and our refusal to forgive them for this
supposed fault.
Second, our
act of forgiving consists of repenting of this wrongdoing of ours,
or in other words, ceasing to accuse those we have been accusing.
Third, when
we cease to accuse them, we cease to feel there's anything on their
part that needs to be forgiven! We no longer find them offensive.
We see that from their point of view they are struggling against
perceived offenses and threats just as we have been. Thus forgiveness
involves opening ourselves to the truth, letting our former offenders
become real to us, and no longer believing there is anything for
us to forgive. As they undergo a transformation in our forgiving
eyes, we undergo a transformation ourselves.
This must be
so. As long as we see others as needing our forgiveness, we will
continue regarding ourselves as their victim and will remain accusing
still. We live free of the bondage of accusing, afflicted feelings
only by ceasing to find and take offense.
Desiring
Forgiveness for Not Forgiving
We need to note one more element of genuine forgiveness. Just
prior to forgiving someone, we will have been finding him or her
offensive. But with forgiveness comes a realization of the offensiveness
of this. How accusing we must have appeared to that person! Whatever
he or she may have done that we previously found offensive has changed
in our memory of it, as Mandy discovered when she thought about
her father—the past is not what we had thought. Recently we wondered
whether we could forgive that person. Now we wonder whether he or
she can forgive us.
This is our
new attitude toward having previously refused to forgive. We feel
a desire to be forgiven for it. Genuine forgiveness includes
a desire to be forgiven and, if it is fitting, to seek that forgiveness.
Of all the initiatives
people can take who feel a devastating wrong has made them miserable,
one stands above all others in effectiveness. It is actually seeking
forgiveness for having refused to forgive. I have observed that
when individuals have struggled for years to escape the effects
of abuse and have tried everything they can think of to forgive
their abuser, they rarely succeed. The reason is that the forgiveness
they aim to produce is a counterfeit of real forgiveness. It could
not be otherwise, because they continue to believe they have been
offended. But when they recognize that the wrongdoing has been theirs,
good things start to happen—but not until then.
We have already
encountered significant examples of this self-recognition, such
as Eli, Mandy, and Samuel, so I will add only two more. It happens
that they are both intergenerational examples. That seems appropriate,
for typically they are the most difficult and they lead to the most
thoroughgoing changes of heart.
The first concerns
Ellie, a notably energetic music teacher who took a course from
me.
Four years before
approaching me, Ellie had gradually begun to recall having been
abused sexually by her father when she was still a girl. She had
worked with a psychiatrist for much of those four years. In spite
of her efforts she had gained no fundamental relief, no healing.
"I feel as if I am a flute clogged up with sludge. I make all
kinds of effort, but no music comes out of me." I asked whether
she had forgiven her father. She said she had thought she had but
wasn't sure, because she still had no peace.
Then I asked
her: "Have you sought his forgiveness for your hard feelings
toward him all these years?" She had not. It had never occurred
to her to do so. I suggested that forgiveness consists not of forgetting
what happened, but of repenting of unforgiving feelings about what
happened, and if possible seek forgiveness.
A light went
on in her face. She pondered for a few moments and said, "I'm
going to do that." The next day she told me she had written
a letter to her father the night before, asking his forgiveness.
She said, "I saw that by blaming him I was refusing to forgive.
I was refusing to admit that he too had suffered in his life and
needed my compassion. And now that I have done this, I feel free
for the first time in my life. This morning, music is flowing through
me and it is sweet." Since that day, this woman has written
me letters filled with happiness. In one she said of her father,
"Last week I even asked his advice, and he was shocked and
pleased."
It is often
said that we need to forgive for our own sake, to rid ourselves
of resentful feelings. That's what Ellie tried to do and couldn't.
Forgiveness cannot be done from self-concern. It must be done for
the truth's sake, or to right a wrong, or out of compassion for
those we previously condemned by our refusal to forgive.
The second story
unfolded when a twenty-nine-year-old woman named Margaret asked
to attend one of my classes.
Margaret had
been in counseling or therapy continuously for fourteen years, chronically
depressed and almost nonfunctional. She blamed her inability to
get on in life on her mother—though she claimed she would go for
long periods without allowing herself to think of her mother (which
is obviously an accusing thing to do, since it's a way of saying,
"You're too despicable to think about, you upset me so much.")
At any one time, she said, she had at most one friend, toward whom
she would behave so possessively that after a few weeks or months
the friend could not tolerate her anymore and would then leave her
alone. Her lips trembled when she talked and were pinched in when
she didn't, and almost always her eyes were downcast. I found it
hard to pity her because she was obviously spending a lot of pity
on herself already. In private I learned that her mother had frequently
abused her sexually when she was a child and, as Margaret thought,
ruined her forever.
The class extended
over the Christmas and New Year's holidays. When we reconvened on
January 10, Margaret was the only participant not present. We started
anyway, and about twenty minutes into the session a woman whom I
did not recognize entered the room and took a seat at one of the
tables where the participants were sitting. As I usually do in situations
like this, I let the discussion continue—interruptions can break
the class's concentration. After a few minutes I realized with a
shock who the woman was and whispered to the person next to me,
"It's Margaret." Simultaneously, I noticed, others were
doing the same thing. Margaret's face was relaxed, and there was
a natural dignity in her bearing that had been completely absent
before. And when she spoke, as she did presently, her lips did not
tremble. The self-pity was gone. To me, her countenance seemed to
be illuminated.
She asked to
speak, and told us she had taken the train over the holiday to see
her mother, whom she had freely forgiven. She told her mother that,
more than anything else, she wanted her to have some peace before
she died. She asked her mother's forgiveness for the hatred she
had borne toward her through so many years. In the days following
her return she often had tender feelings toward her mother, and
called and wrote to her.
I have heard
from Margaret periodically in the ensuing years. Her "cure"
was far from instant, but that visit to her mother proved to be
a turning point. After about a year, in which things gradually improved
in her relationships with roommates, her fear of being betrayed
by them finally disappeared. She has been able to hold a job successfully.
Each time I hear from her she seems to be doing a little better.
Genuine Forgiveness
Transforms the One Who Forgives
When we forgive genuinely, those we formerly accused suddenly
become real for us—the experiences of Eli, Mandy, Samuel, Ellie,
and Margaret are all memorable examples of this. We sense their
insecurity and anxiety; we perceive something of their struggle
to show themselves as worthy and acceptable while fearing that the
opposite might be true. How much like ourselves they are! A new
emotion pushes out the old resentments and fears. Preposterous as
it would have seemed when we were stuck in self-absorption and fear,
we love them.
You might say,
forgiveness has transformed us into beings upon whom others are
writing the truth about themselves, and that truth awakens our compassion.
We are like a tuning fork that, by resonating to sounds all around,
gives off pleasing sounds of its own. The humanity we find in others
becomes our own, measured exactly. That is how human beings achieve
depth of soul. Love is the substance of any forgiveness worthy of
the name.
"If
forgiving
can be thought of as recovery from moral and emotional illness by
means of a change of heart, forgoing is never falling morally and
emotionally ill in the first place, never needing a change of heart."
More on "forgoing" in the next part of "Bonds That
Make Us Free"....
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