Author Archive: doctorbobenright
How to Pass Forgiveness to the Next Generation: Forming Forgiving Communities
How can we pass forgiveness to subsequent generations? We began asking that question in our blog post The Ripple Effect on April 10, 2012. Let us begin to explore some answers to this question through the implementation of forgiving communities.
By “forgiving community” we mean a system-wide effort to make forgiveness a conscious and deliberate part of human relations through: discussion, practice, mutual support, and the preservation of forgiveness across time in any group that wishes to cultivate and perfect this virtue (alongside justice and all other virtues). The Forgiving Community is an idea that can become a reality wherever there is a collection of individuals who wish to unite toward a common goal of fostering forgiveness, developing the necessary structures within their organization to accomplish the goal, and preserving that goal for future generations. We will consider The Family as Forgiving Community here and in a subsequent post, we will consider The School as Forgiving Community.
The central points of the Family as Forgiving Community are these:
1. We are interested in the growth of appreciation and practice in the virtue of forgiveness not only within each individual but also within the family unit itself.
2. For family members to grow in the appreciation and practice of forgiveness, that virtue must be established as a positive norm in the family unit. This necessitates that the parents value the virtue, talk positively about it, and demonstrate it through forgiving and asking for forgiveness on a regular basis within the family.
3. For each member of the family unit to grow in the appreciation and practice of forgiveness, that virtue must be taught in the home, with materials that are age-appropriate and interesting for the children and the parents.
4. Parents will need to persevere in the appreciation, practice, and education of forgiveness if the children are to develop the strength of passing the virtue of forgiveness onto their own families when they are adults.
To achieve these goals, one strategy is the Family Forgiveness Gathering.
The parents are encouraged to create a time and place for family discussions. We recommend that the parents gather the family together at least once a week to have a quiet discussion about forgiveness. They are to keep in mind that to forgive is not the same as excusing or forgetting or even reconciling and that forgiveness works hand-in-hand with justice.
Questions for the family forgiveness meeting might include:
– What does it mean to forgive someone?
– Who was particularly kind and loving to you this week?
– What did that feel like?
– When the person was really loving toward you, what were your thoughts about the person?
– When the person was really loving, how did you behave toward that person?
– Was anyone particularly unfair or mean to you this week?
– What did it feel like when you were treated in a mean way?
– What were your thoughts?
– Did you try to forgive the person for being unfair to you?
– What does forgiveness feel like?
– What are your thoughts when you forgive?
– What are your thoughts specifically toward the one who acted unfairly to you when you forgive him or her?
– How did you behave toward the person once you forgave?
– If you have not yet forgiven, what is a first step in forgiving him or her? (Make a decision to be kind, commit to forgiving, begin in a small way to see that the person is in fact a person of worth.)
The parents are reminded that they do not have to know all the answers.
Helpful Forgiveness Hint:
As you begin to forgive, please realize that you will be finding life-giving meaning in the process of forgiveness itself. You will learn about your ability to endure despite the pain. You will learn that forgiveness is a friend, which can bolster you the next time and the next time and the next time after that when you are emotionally hurt. You will learn how strong you are because you have faced difficulty and have overcome it with respect or compassion or love (or perhaps all three). So, begin the journey and look forward to finding meaning in the process.
Mother of Slain Son Forgives the Killer After Court Sentencing
Theday.com (Connecticut). After her son’s killer, Wendy Georges, delivered a heartfelt apology at his sentencing in New London Thursday, the mother of fatal stabbing victim John Stevens Fleurimond stood up in court to say she forgives him.
Louis said in court that the killing was a mistake, an act between two friends during a poker game.
She even went to hug George, but she was restrained by the Judicial Marshals.
“I forgive him,” cried the mother, Marie Jean Louis. “Because it was a mistake. I know it was a mistake.”
World War II Holocaust Survivor: “Forgiveness is the key for survival and healing”
The Daily Courier (Prescott, Arizona) – Irene Danon, 82, hid from the Nazis in the former Yugoslavia during World War II. She lost family in the concentration camps and yet she says today that learning to forgive the Germans and others, responsible for the genocide of over 6 million people, is the key to her own survival and healing. She says that her parents both died in their 60s because they could not forgive. Her brother died at age 57 for this same reason.
“I hope to show the world the Holocaust really happened, and in order to move on and heal myself, I have learned to forgive,” Danon said. “Forgiveness is the key for survival and healing.”
I have a friend who could benefit from forgiving her mom, but I am not sure what the best way is to introduce the topic to her. Any suggestions about how to do this so she takes it seriously?
There are two ways I would suggest introducing forgiveness to your friend. The first one is what I would call the “lighter” approach. If you are watching a film in which there is a theme of forgiveness, try to make this into a teaching moment by simply and gently discussing what injustice happened, how the forgiver went about the forgiveness task, and what the outcome was. It could plant a seed.
The second approach is to focus on your friend’s pain as a result of the hurt from her mom. Pain is a great attention-getter and motivator. If you can enter into a discussion of the friend’s emotional pain, and then let her know that there is a solution to this pain, she may listen. When you tell her the solution is forgiveness, she may balk at first, but tell her the truth: Forgiveness can reduce anger, anxiety, and depression and increase hope. She may give it a try if the pain is deep enough.
