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?
For this post, I just organized everyone’s comments from the previous thread. Here’s what I came up with – I’ve paraphrased at times, sometimes turned statements into questions and added a few questions of my own.
1. Not taking revenge; this involves a healing process. 2. A release of anger and resentment that can become a habit (Beth’s link). 3. Letting go with no expectations. (Letting go of what?) 4. “Giving completely” – as based on the word’s etymology. (Giving what completely?) 5. Recognizing that everyone makes mistakes and not judging others. 6. A way of expressing love. 7. It’s one way of not clinging or attaching to the egoistic self. Forgiveness can be viewed as part of the larger process of personal growth. 8. It’s for one’s own sake and not others. {I added this one since it usually comes up.}
Forgiveness-Distinctions
1. Forgiving vs. forgetting: we don’t forget in order not to get hurt again in the same way. 2. Forgiving self vs. forgiving others.
Forgiveness Variables
1. Whether the wrongdoer has apologized or changed their behavior for the better. 2. How severe is the harm inflicted? There’s a broad range – from, say, a stinging insult to being physically tortured. 3. What if the wrongdoing is ongoing instead of in the past? Can we, for example, remain in a relationship with someone whose behavior is harmful to us and keep forgiving them at the same time that we’re being harmed? What if we’re unable to leave the relationship? Think, for example, of the frail elderly and severely disabled who may literally be unable to escape situations of abuse or neglect. 4. Relationship of forgiveness to the idea of sin.
Anything to clarify? Add? Do you think any of these ideas are especially on target concerning what forgiveness is, how people manage to forgive and what can make forgiveness difficult?
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 . . .
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? --Mat 27:46
I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! --Luke 12:49
Crossing
His head was lifting; then pain Shot from underneath both arms Into his contorted palms. He slumped and slipped Some fraction of an inch, hearing himself moan.
Like an animal, he thought, Feeling his two feet curled in upon themselves, Tangled in the burning. With every breath He felt a tearing through the tightening
Length of muscles in his chest, between each separate rib, It seemed, when in another half-dream, he found himself A child again, running to his mother’s arms For safety; but there were soldiers and he knew
He’d taken his last step, then slept a second time. He woke to find his breath constrained; His chest felt flattened in the starving air, A pressured pain, submerged and weary.
The gray sky drizzled intimately, drowning His whole skin. Eyes on the horizon, distant white shapes – Houses; and yet he thought of sails against The sea and slumbered deeply into weariness again.
Once more he woke, now in near-dark: My God, My God, he called: Why have you forsaken me? Then still more deeply thought: how I have forsaken you, My God, never meaning to, never thinking it could end
So soon. And Lord, I know they haven’t understood The way that we’ve been one, and how your kingdom, With us like a mustard seed, is sown to raise a Word We do not hear until we learn to speak, Our Father;
And not as though the Father of my self alone, or any other lonely Mortal self; but now I’ve failed, my God, my God – They never understood! Denied his only purpose and desire, Regretting everything, his eyes were lost behind themselves
To find the only Ocean’s face Salted bright with fire.
--Paul Martin
For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another. --Mark 9:49-50
They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. --Mark 1:22
Inverted needs, and one’s between another’s knees. What’s steeped in sleep becomes submerged awake, Beyond our understanding and below belief To steal an ancient instinct kiss more real than scripture; Rapture proved without a prophecy or doubt, Speechless teaching of a Breath made flesh From long before it learned to speak a single word.
Unheard below the broken surfaces, All unselfknown, Moans lose themselves in other moans. No wave knows anything but water. Two shocked faces in a one and only holy place Can meld.
Sleek images of doe and cat, Stern images of steed or stud, Fall like falsehood fossils in sediments like mud. All sentiments of human scent, subservient or dominant, Reveal themselves irrelevant—obscene, brief human themes That stay within the solitary self’s own dream: Carnal without knowledge.
Our dreams are meant to meet, mate, marry, and evaporate. Strong’s made gentle, gentle strengthened; Playful leveled is how level plays. Both stop and stay. This is the way Of galaxies and light and stars, of teeming darknesses, Liquefying earth, and shapely drops of steel. This is how the universe unreels And stays at play for eons. This is how ease feels.
And still by day we live afraid to live And still at night we sleep afraid to die, Dreaming of a solid ground.
Be still. Reality is here and all around, Swiftest current of streams that merge and urge The only One tumultuous tranquility To shake world-stuff such as we like wind through trees, Freeing every branch to play in autumn’s lordly, orderly disorder, Raking clamorous leaves to clap and snap their brazen, long-drawn Holy hush, then tremulously rush to hush again, Another season’s tide to raise the possibility of bright infinity Breaking wide and blue forever on this planet’s flashing eye: Sustaining outcry living what it means to live, Dying what it means to die to dread, And fleeing solid dreams like liquid truth, Forever Now.
Born into an Ocean’s roar, submerged in sound, We barely resonate with All we must resound.
“I know where my father lives,” she said – Near as a poem or a warm hand Safe and close as a child’s Soft breath against the sheet Near as this lithesome flower Bedazzling the new light Surprising the world with the wonder of her blossoming – Like every good thing, Like every well-made child of earth, Fragile, but insistently becoming, Delicate, but unswerving in her Light filled, sun bound purposes.
“I know where my father lives,” her dark eyes said – Far, far as the faintest fleck Of waning half light on the blackened brink; Distant, distant like a vast expanse of continent That lies between a father and his little girl, Distant even as the father’s clouded face That sees a daughter’s need and turns away Compassionless.
I know where my Father lives: Near as the loving heart That, young or old, Seeks kindred warmth, Creates well-being; Distant as the human face averted, A child’s letter returned, marked Moved, no forwarding address.
- Paul Martin
(The previous post describes the incident this poem was based on.)
The previous post included looking at God conceived as person vs. God conceived of as Nature or Being itself. It’s possible for people to feel and express spirituality either way – or both. Here’s some background on a poem I wrote that employs the traditional Judeo-Christian image of God the Father.
Amy, let’s call her, was a first-grader whose teacher brought her to me one morning because she’d been crying non-stop ever since she’d arrived in class. It took some time for me to get Amy’s attention focused on me to the point where her tears subsided enough for her to talk. When she finally did, I was able to figure out that her father had left – suddenly and recently. Amy had tried to send him a letter, and it had been returned because the jerk (I, uh, avoided using this word with Amy) wasn’t at that address. The returned letter was the immediate cause of her tears.
She was practically inconsolable – this was a really bad day for her – and all I wanted to do was make her feel a little better to get past the immediate crisis and make it through the rest of her school day. I had crayons and paper at the table and found myself trying to diminish her feeling of abandonment by explaining that sometimes a kid’s father can move SO far away that it’s hard to stay in touch. (Yeah, right . . . I know . . .)
I drew an outline of North America. I put a dot on about the spot that our small town in New Hampshire was located. I put a second dot in the middle of the Florida peninsula and explained that when I was little, my dad moved away too, and we didn’t get to see him or talk to him much because even though he loved us he was so far away.
Amy thought about that, looked up at me with big dark eyes that were much darker than they should have been, and quietly spoke the words, “I know where my father lives.” She picked up a crayon. She placed a dot on the farthest possible point away from the dot marking our location – it would have been northwest Alaska.
When God is conceived in personal terms, God is still thought of as being vastly transcendent of human nature. Do we know enough about the nature of all-nature and the nature of God to be able to distinguish their two characters, one from the other?
It’s true that nature as we can examine it through microscopes and telescopes appears non-affirming of our human lives, both individually and collectively – if you forget about the fact that its laws and properties allow us to exist. Setting that aside to focus on the fact that in natural terms, life ends with death as far as we can see… How far can we see? Do we already know the full extent of all-nature? Has science already grasped the fullness of the biggest picture to know that all-that-is does not ultimately affirm us in some way?
To paraphrase St. Paul: with regard to the One in whom we live and move and have our being, how do we know whether to call that one God or Nature? Would it make a difference?
“Yeah God’s/Got that somethin’/I think you’ll understand . . .”
The Beatles, I Wanna Hold God’s Hand, 1963 – first draft
Atheist readers, please bear with me; you’re included below even if you don’t really believe that this was the original lyric from the first draft of I Wanna Hold Your Hand.
A theme that comes up from time to time both here and on other religion blogs is the distinction between a personal God and God as pointed to by contemplative or “mystical” traditions (not crazy about that word, but don’t want to digress).
But is the distinction truly meaningful?
In meditation or contemplative prayer, the experience certainly isn’t “impersonal.” It doesn’t feel cold. There’s no sense, say, of waiting at a divine deli counter with God indifferently having you take a number to stand at the back of the line. Rather, it’s an immense experience, more than can be described – the opposite of feeling left out or dehumanized.
For those who conceive of God in personal terms, isn’t this conception more of a helpful image than a matter of literally seeing God as human? Even if God (in Christianity as the Father or for that matter as the Son) has a human dimension, isn’t that which makes God God – the Father and the Son and not the father and son – something that transcends humanness? Furthermore, isn’t this “something” likely to be along the lines of what mystics try to suggest with other sorts of language?
Now consider an atheist looking up at the stars and experiencing awe in the face of what he or she understands as nature or being-itself. The atheist is amazed at nature’s immensity and how such a vast force ended up briefly washing her up on time’s changing shoreline to feel such things.
How much of a stretch is it to capitalize Being in this experience?
Should we really distinguish among a personal God as given names by Christianity and other religions; the ineffable God of mysticism; and Being-Itself as the atheist responds to it? If so, what’s the critical distinction?
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing – but doesn’t it mean everything if it does?
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet . . . A Being by any other name would be the same?
