Archive for August, 2018
In my experience I find that when Person A is hurt by Person B, then Person A tends to angrily withdraw love from others, such as Persons C, D, and E, who were not involved in the hurtful event. Do you see this happening? If so, then why does this happen?
Yes, I do see this happen. It is not an inevitable occurrence in most people, but it does happen with some. I think this occurs because of the psychological defense of displacement, which is transferring one’s angry feelings and behaviors, meant for a particular person, onto others as a way of trying to manage the anger. In other words, suppose Person A was hurt by his boss, Person B. It is too threatening for Person A to express that anger toward the boss. Yet, Person A still tries to release the pent-up anger and so it comes pouring out on others who will not threaten Person A once the anger is expressed.
An example of this is Person A displacing that anger onto his own children, who take that anger and learn to become angry. The children, then, once they grow into adulthood might end up displacing their anger onto their partner or their own children. This is one reason why forgiving is so important. It stops the unfair transmission of anger through the generations.
I am a religious person. I believe that God asks me to forgive. Since this is the case, can I really say that forgiveness is my choice?
Even if God is asking you to forgive, you still have to cooperate with this and do your part. As an analogy, suppose your partner asks you for help in lifting some heavy bricks. You know the request and you know it is important. Yet, you still have the free will to help, when to help, or not to help. I think it is the same with your understanding of God. You are asked and yet it is your free will that helps you decide whether to forgive, when to forgive, and what actions in which to engage to bring about forgiveness. I would think of it as an interaction between God’s command or encouragement, grace for you to perform the act of forgiveness, and your will to be motivated to forgive and to engage in the actions of forgiveness.
Teen with Terminal Cancer Responds to Cyberbullies with Forgiveness
The Daily Signal, Waco, Texas – Jeremiah Thomas—a 16-year-old all-star, state champion football player from Waco, TX—was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive bone cancer just four months ago. Since then, he has battled chemotherapy, radiation, a collapsed lung, and paralysis from the waist down.
Unfortunately, Jeremiah has also had to endure despicable scorn and taunts from many social media trolls. With perhaps only weeks left to live, Jeremiah has been accosted numerous times on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook with some deplorable messages:
“Jeremiah … You aren’t dead yet? God, do your job!” taunted one anonymous writer.
“Good Riddance,” another posted to Jeremiah’s prayer group page on Facebook.
And Jeremiah’s mother, Kendra Thomas, quoted one person as saying Jeremiah has “a racist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic [sic], hateful” agenda, and another as saying “He’s garbage and is suffering as he deserves.”
All that hate and vitriol was generated because Jeremiah made a “legacy wish” through the 38-year-old Make-A-Wish Foundation that some social media respondents apparently found offensive. As his final wish, Jeremiah dared to call for the abolition of abortion in Texas.
When that wish circulated around to Texas Gov. Greg Abbot, he called Jeremiah and spoke with him in his hospital bed in June about passing a bill to abolish abortion in the state in order to make Jeremiah’s “legacy wish” a reality.
The teen made his reasoning for that request public on June 24 by posting “A Letter to My Generation,” describing his Christian faith and writing in part:
We have grown up in a culture of death, sexual confusion, immorality and fatherlessness. This culture of death I speak of consists of abortion, homosexuality and suicide. One-third of our generation has been wiped out due to abortion; 60 million babies have been murdered. Over 25 million people have died as a result of AIDS. We have been handed a bill of goods that has completely destroyed us. In our nation, we have chosen death and received the curse.
While struggling with his terminal illness–known as osteoblastic osteosarcoma–would certainly be enough suffering for most people, Jeremiah has been handling the hate mail gracefully.
“Its kind of sickening,” Jeremiah says. “I pray for them…What has happened to people to make them think like that?”
Jeremiah’s mother adds, “Jesus has given him a special grace to forgive. He tells his siblings, ‘Just forgive. We can’t return evil for evil.’”
Jeremiah’s family had set up a GoFundMe page three months ago to help raise money for surgery. It had reached $118,659 as of Aug. 11.
Read more:
‘Just forgive’: Pro-life teen with cancer responds to pro-choice hate
Teen With Terminal Cancer Forgives Cyberbullies as He Fights ‘Culture of Death’
Is there a right time to forgive?
Each person has to determine this right time. It will vary by how much experience the person has with the forgiveness process, who hurt the forgiver, how deeply the forgiver was hurt, and the support from others in forgiving.
Humility, Courage, and Forgiveness
Forgiveness is full of paradoxes. Consider three examples of these paradoxes:
1) As one is kind to those who are not kind to the person, then the forgiver experiences emotional relief;
2) Rather than seeking justice as part of forgiveness, the person exercises the virtue of mercy and this can be part of the healing process between two people;
3) When emotionally hurting from the injustice the focus is not on the self, but on the other and this promotes healing in the forgiver.
Another paradox is that as forgiveness fosters humility, the lowliness of humility fosters the strength of courage. As one forgives, one begins to practice humility which means lowering oneself from a potential power position to see the self and the other as at least somewhat similar in these: We are both imperfect; we both have hurt others; we are both human and therefore each of us possesses inherent worth. The humility can help one stand firm in courage to persevere in the forgiveness process with all of its paradoxes. After all, if the forgiver sees the inherent worth in both, then there is motivation to acknowledge this worth and see the process of forgiveness through to the end, which requires courage. Courage is not the absence of fear, but moving forward even in fear.
Humility and courage each can be misunderstood. There are two extremes to both humility and courage. The first extreme for humility is to have a very lowly—too lowly—view of the self so that people think they deserve to be humiliated, even constantly humiliated. The other extreme of humility is, in trying to see one’s own bounds or limitations, to distort these at too high a level. The quest for humility, in this second case of extremes, leads to a distortion toward one’s own greatness, one’s own specialness above others.
The first extreme of courage is too much fear that leads to a lack of action. The second extreme of courage is a reckless bravado, charging ahead without the ability to do so and therefore to endanger self and others.
Humility requires a middle-ground between self-deprecation and self-inflation to a more realistic view of one’s own (and others’) strengths and weaknesses.
Courage requires a middle-ground between being frozen in fear and being reckless.
As one forgives, the person needs to balance both humility and courage. Genuine humility (without the extremes discussed above) helps the forgiver to see the shared humanity with the forgiven. Genuine courage (without those extremes) helps the forgiver to persevere in the struggle to forgive and to bring justice as its own moral virtue into the process of reconciliation.
Humility, courage, and forgiveness are a team that, together, can lead to inner healing and the offer of reconciliation toward those who have behaved unjustly.
Robert
