Forgiveness and Probably Not
Looking at comments to the last couple posts leads me to think that forgiveness is something that requires effort and volition. If it happens automatically, then whatever it is and however helpful it is, it seems to me that forgiveness may not be the right word for it. Forgiveness is something that we struggle with; that we may need help or encouragement with; and that we may even fail to do.
Here are a couple examples of constructive changes in our attitudes toward others that to me don’t sound so much like forgiveness:
Someone mentioned responding favorably to a sincere apology or a relationship that had changed for the better. If that response is pretty much automatic, so that now, despite past events, we feel positively about the other person because he or she has changed, then to me this sounds essentially like a matter of liking another person because that person is behaving well toward us – a relatively straightforward matter. It’s true that if the offense had been great, then accepting the apology or the other person’s change in attitude could well include real personal effort and struggle; to that extent, forgiveness would be involved.
Someone else mentioned having been wronged but no longer feeling upset about it because in the long run, he recognized that the experience had proved beneficial to him. Again, while forgiveness may be involved to some degree, it probably isn’t central.
At least one commenter has identified forgiveness with “letting go.” Sounds right to me. If something just falls away from us, that’s wonderful – but it isn’t forgiveness. To forgive is to release – to deliberately let go of something that’s hard to let go of.
What is it that we need to let go of? What makes it so hard to do?
Here are a couple examples of constructive changes in our attitudes toward others that to me don’t sound so much like forgiveness:
Someone mentioned responding favorably to a sincere apology or a relationship that had changed for the better. If that response is pretty much automatic, so that now, despite past events, we feel positively about the other person because he or she has changed, then to me this sounds essentially like a matter of liking another person because that person is behaving well toward us – a relatively straightforward matter. It’s true that if the offense had been great, then accepting the apology or the other person’s change in attitude could well include real personal effort and struggle; to that extent, forgiveness would be involved.
Someone else mentioned having been wronged but no longer feeling upset about it because in the long run, he recognized that the experience had proved beneficial to him. Again, while forgiveness may be involved to some degree, it probably isn’t central.
At least one commenter has identified forgiveness with “letting go.” Sounds right to me. If something just falls away from us, that’s wonderful – but it isn’t forgiveness. To forgive is to release – to deliberately let go of something that’s hard to let go of.
What is it that we need to let go of? What makes it so hard to do?
Posted by Paul at 10:46 PM Permalink
20 Comments:
The forced version, the hammered in place version is merely a false front to feign moral superiority over an abuser, or perhaps a desire to please people who demand you forgive or be revictimized with the stigmatizing labels of "unforgiving", "resentful", "bitter". Who wants to carry those labels around on their back? usually the perpetrator is someone who has more influence, control and he or she will be the one who has the crowd behind him. You will be the cast out, the loner, the hold out who wants change but has no power.
Where is the mercy for the victims?
I don't mean to throw a wrench into the engine, but this is what I truely believe. I'm much more forgiving now that I am excercising my right and my new found ability to protect myself.
KIMIAM: Good points. For me, they’d break down this way:
What you’re calling the natural form of forgiveness I’d call the unconscious aspect of a process which, if it’s to be called “forgiveness,” also includes a conscious, intentional aspect that people have to engage with, often with great difficulty and struggle. If forgiveness always or usually occurred entirely naturally with the passage of time, then it would be hard to understand why people verbalize such struggle around forgiveness issues and impossible to account for the many cases where people go to their graves still harboring resentment over real or perceived wrongs done to them by others.
What you refer to as forced versions of forgiveness sound like false forgiveness, where it’s really a matter of egoism or conformity to external pressures.
The main purpose of forgiveness, with rare exceptions, is exactly as you say: for one’s own sake and not the sake of the offender. Usually the offender just gets on with life – it’s rare, from what I’ve seen, for the offender to return to the person whom he or she has wronged to ask for forgiveness. Personally, I’ve never seen it happen.
I should add that one factor that can make forgiveness require much less effort and feel, as you say, more natural, is if we can work things out so that the person who has wronged us is no longer a part of our lives. If circumstances don't allow for that, this is something that can make forgiveness a lot more work...
I know that in reality, I've made judgements about their act (that it must be wrong because it hurt me), and that the world really does not make ethical sense, but it's very hard to give up those cherished beliefs ... at least I think that's why it's hard for me to forgive.
KAI, same as before –
CARRIE W: Yes, I think it’s a good idea to zone in on exactly what’s being discussed as closely as possible. Although positive changes that occur in relationships without the intentionality and conscious decision-making that I think are involved with forgiveness can be just as helpful and important, they’re easier!
http://www.almostgotit.com/2008/03/31/not-quite-what-i-was-planning-the-book-and-tag/
Hope you play...
Obviously, I'm joking, but to make a point... the whole point in forgiveness is to avoid the self-centered disconnection from God of holding a grudge. We are to forgive for a two-fold benefit: first, it liberates us personally from resentment, and secondly it bestows grace on the other party and essentially forces them to reconsider their actions. Turning the other cheek, if you will.
I'm actually surprised that no one has brought up the relationship of parents and children in this discussion - at least to the extent of parental forgiveness of a child.
Example: my three-year-old daughter scribbled all over her bedroom walls with crayons and markers (right after we painted her walls white). After my wife got done "venting," I sat down with my daughter and we talked about it. I asked her why she did it, and she decided she wanted to make her walls pretty. We looked at the walls, and I asked her if they were pretty, and she conceded that they weren't. I asked her if she remembered all the hard work mommy and daddy did to paint her room, and she did. (all the while, she's got the "puppy-who-just-got-caught-making-a-mess" look) I asked her if she was sorry for doing it, and she said she was. After a moment, I just looked her square in the eyes and said, "I forgive you." She looked at me kind of confused, so I told her again, "I forgive you." Her eyes lit up, and she asked if she could help clean up the mess. I told her, "No, we're going to leave it like this for awhile so you can remember not to do it again." She was a little disappointed about that, but she was satisfied with the outcome. She gave me a big ol' daughter hug, I gave her a big ol' daddy-hug, and now she's learned her lesson, and I'm not holding a grudge about it.
The point here is that, grace is the ultimate outcome of forgiveness. When we forgive, we are essentially being a conduit for the love and mercy of the higher power. These are the purpose and the benefit to forgiveness.
As to why it is so difficult for some to forgive, I think many have touched on this in the last few posts. Out of a sense of justice according to the gravity of the offense... a result of behavioral influences in our lives... cultural standards... or simply a sense of self-centeredness, as I mentioned.
VISHESH: I’ve never seriously said “I forgive you” to anyone out loud either. This seems to point to how forgiveness tends to be something we do for ourselves more often than something that others need from us.
TIMJAMZ: “{Forgiveness} liberates us personally from resentment, and secondly it bestows grace on the other party and essentially forces them to reconsider their actions.”
Unless my experience has been unusual, the first is the main purpose of forgiveness in adult life. My impression is that forgiveness verbalized for the benefit of the transgressor is much less common – not to say, of course, that it doesn’t occur. But I think that far fewer people are troubled by someone else not forgiving them than are troubled by their own inability to forgive.
That’s probably why the parent to children issue hasn’t come up previously. A child in our care who messes up very much wants to feel him or herself back in our good graces again. But other adults who do us harm, even great harm, can typically get on with their lives quite well, and very often completely unperturbed.
It must be, as you suggest, that a number of factors make forgiveness difficult. I wonder if anything will emerge as central or at least with some factors appearing to be more strongly implicated than others.
BETH: This is going to sound ridiculous, but, no kidding, I’ve known a CAT with a major forgiveness issue. If I hadn’t seen it myself I wouldn’t have believed it. To describe this cat’s behavior in relation to the cat she resented would take too long and I don’t want to get sidetracked - but I’d be curious if anyone else has seen an animal hold a grudge.
But I guess really it was just a grudge issue and not a forgiveness issue, since the cat had no way to become conscious that her resentment wasn’t doing her any good. If she did have that capacity, then it was taking too long, lol; my sister couldn’t take it anymore, and after a year of trying to promote reconciliation, she finally gave her second cat to our mom.
So yeah, humanity - you have to be able to hold a grudge while at least sensing that it's unwise in order for the issue of letting it go to emerge...
Yes, I agree, forgivness is a concious effort to let go of something with no expectation of anything in return. When I forgive myself or others, I forgive because of love, I forgive or let go without condition. This letting go without condition is what true forgivness is. This means that even if a person behavior towards me went unchanged and even if they did not ask for forgivness that I would still forgive them, because there was no expectation or price attached to my forgiveness or letting go.
The relationship between love and forgiveness is worth looking at. For example, does forgiveness – for a working definition of forgiveness, maybe something like “letting go of resentment” – necessarily mean that the resentment is replaced by feelings of warmth and high regard?
LIARA: It seems to me too that love has a reality that is in some sense greater than almost all other aspects of human experience.
The Buddha: “Life is suffering.” Liara: “Nothing is hard.”
If I had to come up with a three word universal generalization, neither of these would completely work for me. However, the first would come closer than the second. Hunger, thirst, schizophrenia, disease, or just the stages that people go through to resolve life’s expected losses and common emotional difficulties, are inherently difficult and clearly can’t be avoided by simple reminders not to hang onto them.
It's much easier to forgive someone you love, but another sort of forgiveness is when it's not a two way thing. It's a case of flipping over, thinking of it as "this person is like that because of the genes they got and the life they had up to now, I can't change anything up to this point and neither could they. I've got to accept that and do what I can with the situation I've got." It's hard because of the instinct to fight someone who pisses you off I think.
LIARA: Even near the end of his life, the Buddha spoke of his difficulty keeping to the Eightfold Path.
To me the idea of the resolution of all problems and difficulties by an exercise of choice has connotations that oversimplify the process of spiritual growth. It may be semantics - can't tell for sure by what I've read from you to date. Often people do mean different things by the same words in the area of religion and spirituality.
Since he spoke of having difficulty keeping to the Eightfold Path, it’s clear that he didn’t entirely eliminate cognitive-emotional suffering in his own life. Further, I never read anything to suggest and can’t imagine he would have taught that it’s possible to eliminate feelings of cold, hunger, thirst, pain – the suffering that comes with having a body. Of course, developing a strong and positive attitude when faced with physical suffering cuts down on a person’s overall suffering and is therefore a great good even without eliminating physical suffering. I advisedly speak here of “developing” rather than “choosing” such an attitude.
I’ve never read Buddhist writings that speak the language of personal choice, which I've most often encountered in conservative Christianity. What I’ve read in Buddhism emphasizes terms like mindfulness, awareness, paying attention, and a way, journey, process or path – not the Eight Choices, but an Eightfold Path involving extensive and intensive practice and one that never comes to a stop. Per my previous reply, an emphasis on personal choice language has connotations that ring false to me as oversimplifying the processes of personal and spiritual growth. You may or may not intend those connotations by emphasizing such language.
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