Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Deconstructing the Spirit of Forgiveness: So What Is It?

Forgiveness is a topic that comes up a lot on religion and spirituality blogs.

What is it?

What do we do when we forgive – how do we feel, what do we think, who is it for? Does the word “forgive” cover a host of sins, so to speak, so that it means different things under different circumstances, or does it refer to something quite specific?

I’ve seen this subject approached from lots of different directions and may construct follow up posts from your comments . . .

12 Comments:

Vincent said...: In order to understand the significance of forgiveness it’s necessary to start not with the sophisticated religious notion of sin but the simple ordinary notion of hurt. Suppose you do something hurtful to me. I may say to myself, when I recover from my anger, “I can forgive, but I can’t forget”.

The reason I cannot forget is to protect myself from being hurt by you again in similar circumstances. I can forgive because I don’t want to take revenge.

Forgiveness fundamentally means “not taking revenge”. There are societies characterized by their vengefulness, and others which are naturally forgiving. In the one case, they have death penalty, or very cruel punishments. In the other case, they don’t take revenge because it would interfere with a natural healing process that we call redemption.

Revenge is such a destructive force in the human breast that great efforts have been made by societies to deflect or outlaw it. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I will repay.” That Biblical saying must have arisen from a culture of individual or tribal vengefulness.

I would suggest that a natural follow-on post, Paul, would be on the topic of sin, which I have purposely excluded here.; 1:42 AM
vishesh said...: well i don't believe to forgive is to forget... i believe when we have accepted that whatever the other person did was wrong and have accepted their apology,we still need to remember...that way everyone will be happy to be where they are...

sometimes we forgive very easily sometimes we don't....but all events have their own parts...someday we forgive everyone...forgiveness i think can be said to an action where we return the unnecessary stuff the other person gave to us...; 3:49 AM
Don Iannone said...: From a Buddhist standpoint, forgiveness is another way of not clinging or attaching. It's about letting go...; 7:28 AM
vishesh said...: you are tagged paul :); 9:04 AM
Donn said...: I just saw a big-to-do about forgiving people living longer and healthier lives. I totally believe that.

I like to be a discerning about who I can forgive...I like it al la carte. For instance most people would never forgive Hitler but will cut their best friend some slack...

unless he stole your beautiful girlfriend in high school and then married her after graduating from Harvard Law and made you stand up as the best man in order to witness the spectacle of your failure firsthand and then they saunter off and lived happily ever after in a huge house with four perfect kids and family vacations to Hawaii every year..aaaaarrrgghhh..

OK most of us will forgive their puppy for chewing their slippers.

Don't worry I made up that best friend thingamabob.; 9:04 AM
Suzy said...: Forgiving is one thing. But do we stay in the relationship that has caused us an undo amount of pain, unless that person or ourselves change?

Forgiving to me, is letting go with no expectations.

Great post Paul. Timely also.; 9:47 AM
gollygee said...: For me, forgiveness happens after a genuine apology, time, or when the positives of that relationship far outweigh the infraction. Or a combination of all three. I try not to dwell on things, I don't like negative energy, so I've found that even though someone did something that made me really angry at the time, I just give up and forgive them after a few years (at most) because it just feels better that way. Everyone makes mistakes and maybe they don't realize that they made a mistake yet, but it's sort of a trust that they eventually will realize it and will feel sorry about it, whether or not they say something about it to you when they come to that realization. I've tried to make a point of apologizing to people for things that I did years and years ago, which some have reacted to like "I don't even remember you doing that", but I still feel like I should. Better late than never. :); 2:41 PM
~beth ♥ said...: Not only must one be concerned with forgiveness of others ... but there is also the issue of forgiving oneself. Despite being raised in a strong Christian environment - I don't remember being taught to forgive myself.

I blogged about it once back on my old myspace blog. (I hope that link works. It very will may not.); 2:45 PM
Paul said...: Great comments! Kind of what I was expecting might happen - lots of angles on this topic.

I'll let them keep coming for now and in my next post, will look at what we came up with and what sorts of questions or loose ends might be left.

I think I'll try copying and pasting the whole thread on a Word doc, deleting all your names, then organizing by themes without reference to who wrote what.

There should be a name for this. Maybe it will start a trend - "Postable Threads -?"; 5:44 PM
Mark said...: I believe forgivness is another way to express unconditional love and the ability to let go and not get caught up by our ego.
Forgivness is essential to our continued positive growth.; 6:10 PM
Liara Covert said...: To learn the meaning of unconditional forgiveness is to begin to experience the power of unconditional love. if one believes we are meant to contribute to a network of joy, a grid of expanding positive energy, then learning forgiveness is part of our evolving role in a big picture. It touches all Humanity.; 12:30 AM
Pauline said...: I like the original meaning of the Old English "forgiefan" - 'for' meant completely and 'giefan' meant give. No mention of forget - which is much harder to do...; 6:59 PM