Our Forgiveness Blog
Just Checking in Regarding Your Unfolding Love Story
In January of this year, we posted a reflection here in which we encouraged you to grow in love as your legacy of 2014.
The challenge was this: Give love away as your legacy of 2014.
One way to start is by looking backward at one incident of 2013. Please think of one incident with one person in which you were loved unconditionally, perhaps even surprised by a partner or a parent or a caring colleague. Think of your reaction when you felt love coming from the other and you felt love in your heart and the other saw it in your eyes. What was said? How were you affirmed for whom you are, not necessarily for something you did? What was the other’s heart like, and yours?
It is now about two months later. Can you list some specific, concrete ways in which you have chosen love over indifference? Love over annoyance? If so, what are those specifics and how are they loving? We ask because 2014 will be 25% over at the end of March. Have you engaged in 25% of all the loving responses that you will leave in this world this year?
Tempus fugit. If you have not yet deliberately left love in the world this year, there is time…..and the clock is ticking.
Robert
This Twisty Journey You Are On: A Helpful Forgiveness Hint
This journey we call forgiveness is not a straight path to the end with joy awaiting you. Instead, if you are like the rest of us, you will start and stop and start again a number of times before you arrive, safe, at the journey’s end. You will be making great progress and then have a dream about the person and wake up angry all over again. You will think you have conquered only to meet again the person who hurts you, and there is the anger. Or, it is a special holiday and you reflect back on your life hoping for peace and instead get a piece of the person’s own anger, and once again you are angry. The forgiveness path is like this and so please be gentle with yourself. Just start again with this person by examining the nature of your wounds now, assess what kind of work you need to do (more love? more merciful restraint?) and continue.
Robert
Five Questions about Self-Forgiveness
Of all the people in the world, who do we tend to be hardest on when we mess up?
Right, ourselves.
If we self-forgive, is it illegitimate because we are then the judge and the defendant in the case?
Self-forgiveness is not about jurisprudence. It is about goodness. We can offer goodness to ourselves.
If we self-forgive, aren’t we just letting ourselves off the moral hook?
No. When we self-forgive we should go to the ones we have hurt and make amends. We are not letting ourselves off the hook when we try to make things right.
But, self-forgiveness is about forgiving myself for offending myself. Why are we talking about making amends toward other people?
We talk about this because we do not offend ourselves in isolation. If you think about it, if you are very unjust to yourself, others such as partner, family, co-workers, and even the community might be affected, depending on what the offense is.
What should I expect if and when I forgive myself?
Inner peace and the conviction not to do that again.
Robert
The Ripple Effect
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” The anthropologist, Margaret Mead said that. She was talking about the ripple effect—one small stone cast into the lake can expand the ripple more widely than the small beginning.
It is this way with anger as well. It can be passed on from generation to generation without seeming to stop. One June night I witnessed the ripple effect of anger in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was late June, the beginning of “parade season,” when British and Irish communities stage parades to remember their heritage, including battles between them that took place over 300 years ago. In those battles one side won, the other lost. And anger raged.
On that June night, youth from each group gathered on either side of the street. They had hatred in their eyes as they glared at each other, daring the other to make the first move. In a small way, they were replaying the Battle of the Boyne, fought between King William of Orange and King James II in 1690. Think about that for a moment. A battle was fought in the 17th century and its effects are being seen and felt in the 21st century in the Ardoyne neighborhood of Belfast.
Police cars came, the crowds grew, and in a short while there was rock throwing, hatred, and rioting……among youth who probably have never met each other. They hate each other without a direct cause. The cause is a ripple effect from hundreds of years ago, when one side won and the other lost. That night in June in the 21st century, everyone lost.
It seems too easy for the ripple effect to be seen when anger takes root. It made me think: Can we start a ripple effect of forgiveness in such a community, even if it is a “small group of thoughtful, committed individuals?” This would seem possible, but it further seems to me that it requires special care, a kind of care that anger does not need to stay alive. The small group of thoughtful, committed individuals could start a ripple effect of forgiveness, but they would have to know this: The ripple effect of goodness is much more easily disrupted by anger than the ripple effect of anger is disrupted by goodness.
It is too easy to stay angry. It is not nearly as easy to stay forgiving and good. We need that small group of thoughtful and committed individuals to stay strong and to pass that sense of passionate commitment to the next generation. How is this accomplished?
Robert
What If My Trust Is Damaged?
When we have been treated with distain, our trust is likely damaged. What is sad is this: We not only lose trust in the one who was cruel but also we tend to lose trust in people in general. To make matters worse, we tell ourselves a new story about how the world works and that story reinforces our fear of others as we tell ourselves and believe, “No one is worthy of my trust.” Then we find that those we should trust the most, a spouse, for example, are the ones we now mistrust the most, even when they are not the grave offender who damaged our trust in the first place.
How do we work our way out of this? We recommend three approaches. First, forgive the one who hurt you. This will lessen your anger, which you might be displacing onto others, possibly straining other relationships and thus damaging your trust further.
Second, forgive the person for damaging your trust. This is a secondary wound that we rarely realize we have. It should further reduce your anger.
Third, choose one person who is reliable and focus on the little things in that relationship that legitimately allow you to trust that person. Take time to abide in that person’s reliability and kindness. Then combine your forgiveness, your reducing anger, and your growing trust in that one, kind person and be aware of small steps of trust as they grow in you. It will take time, but it is time well spent. In time, you may see that your general trust in people returns.
As a final note, if the one who originally damaged your trust remains a danger to you, then you need not reconcile with him or her. That reconciliation may come in time as the person behaves in such a way as to earn back your trust.
Robert
