Platitudes on Plaques
I was searching the web for news of forgiveness today when I was faced with “Images of forgiveness,” a series of photos which are supposed to represent this topic. The image that caught my attention was from the national (American) magazine, Psychology Today. It is a plaque-like image with the inscription, “Forgiveness is not something we do for other people. We do it for ourselves to get well and move on.” It is stated so emphatically and so confidently….and it is so incorrect.
If forgiveness is not “for other people,” then it is not one of the moral virtues alongside justice and patience and kindness and love. What is it then? It seems as if the plaque-writer has reduced forgiveness to a psychological technique for oneself as a way to heal emotionally. If the other person who hurt us is not in this healing equation, then apparently we are free to dismiss him or her, to ignore him or her, to be indifferent toward him or her. Forgiveness as dismissiveness. I don’t think so. How can we heal when we still see the other as unworthy of our mercy and love? The plaque, with all of its fine-sounding rhetoric, ultimately is a formula for distortion and a lack of healing in either self or other. Beware the fine-looking and confident-sounding platitudes on plaques.
