Our Forgiveness Blog

Through the Eyes of a Child

As astounding as Kyle’s triumph is, there is also another story to be told here, one of recognizing who a person really is. One of the many things that struck me about this story was the younger sister’s comment, she didn’t see him as “different” she just saw him as a “normal big brother,” her brother. Her vision was pure and un-skewed by the bitterness of criticism and judgmental views that often come with age. The love of her big brother Kyle, out-shined the “abnormalities” seen by others. She did not see the physical differences that clouded the perspectives of so many who let those differences get in the way of seeing a courageously strong soul, full of life and love. It’s too bad for them…what a loss on their part. In their blindness they missed out on an empowering opportunity to meet, get to know, and learn from someone who has so much to give and so much to teach. Have you ever noticed how easily a child seems to forgive? I think this is in no small way due to the fact they have an innate ability to see through the obstacles that can obstruct our view, into the heart of who a person is, to see the goodness within, and to recognize the “human-ness” of a person. What if we could all see each person, despite their differences and even despite their faults and shortcomings, simply as a human being worthy of love? What if we could see each person through the eyes of a child, with purity and true clarity?

R.E.

Pay it Forward Day – Forward Forgiveness

Today is “Pay it Forward Day” inspired by the book “Pay it Forward” by Catherine Ryan Hyde and the movie by the same name. Yesterday we reflected on Forwarding Forgiveness and how forgiveness can reach out to entire communities in a rippling effect.

I’d like to challenge everyone reading this to Forward Forgiveness to one other person as a way to pay it forward today. Forgiveness is one of the most beautiful acts of kindness and love we can give. It has the power to change lives.

Who in your life might you need to forgive? Try to start thinking about forgiving this person. What would it be like to offer forgiveness to this person? How might it benefit your life and this person’s life? What is one step you can take today in forgiving this person?

Is there anyone who you might encounter today and need to forgive? Keep forgiveness in the forefront of your mind so that you can be prepared to forgive without letting your anger get the best of you.

Can you think of someone who could benefit from learning about forgiveness? Tell him or her about how forgiving has helped you and others in your life.? Share a book on forgiveness? (Dr. Enright has a few).

Do you have a personal story of forgiveness that could inspire others ?Share it in our “Forgiveness Stories” page.

I hope you can be inspired by this beautiful and powerful song entitled “Forgiveness” by Peter Katz. It was inspired by the courage and forgiveness of Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg who was kidnapped and murdered in Iraq by Al-Zarcawi. (Credits – Composer: Peter Katz, Director: Andrew Moniz, Producer: Daniel Mazzucco, Cinematographer: Roger Singh. www.peterkatz.com)

Be inspired and pass that inspiration along by forwarding forgiveness!

Amber Flesch

Forward Forgiveness

I’d like to share with you Katy Hutchison’s story of forgiveness here on the Gill Deacon show. This is a wonderful example of the power of forgiveness and how it can change and continue to change lives in a spiraling web of cause and effects. Ryan Aldridge murdered Katy’s husband and was sentenced to five years in prison. This tragedy could have played out in many very different ways.

Let’s see how life ended up for Ryan, Katy and her kids, and countless others who are and have been a part of their lives. Let’s also take a look at how forgiveness played a key role in this outcome. Read more at the forgiveness project website.

Now, if you missed or grazed over it the first time, here were a couple of provocative points to ponder. Let me highlight some specific quotes from the story.

Katy writes, “Taking tranquillizers and having someone look after your kids would probably be easier, but I feel compelled to do something with Bob’s legacy. I want to tell my story to help change people’s perceptions and where possible I want to do this with Ryan by my side. I’ll never understand how our universes collided but they did, and as Bob can’t make further contribution to society, then perhaps Ryan can. Whether victim or perpetrator, part of being human is rolling up our sleeves and taking an active part in repairing harm.”

Ryan shares, “Katy’s forgiveness is the most incredible thing that anyone has ever given me. It changed my life. There’s trouble every day in prison, offers of drugs and threats of fights, but I don’t give in. My life would still be full of anger and violence if it wasn’t for Katy…Doing time is easy compared to the guilt I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life. But with Katy, Emma and Sam’s forgiveness, I hope that perhaps, one day, I’ll be able to forgive myself.”

Think about how this story could have ended even more tragically had Katy not chosen to forgive. In the video you may recall that this was the essential key that allowed her to move on, to recover, to be a mother to her young children who needed her. What would their lives have been like without a father and a mother? How has her forgiveness impacted their lives now and especially in the future? Think about the many lives that they will in turn impact as they grow from childhood to adulthood.

Now let’s turn to Ryan, struggling with depression, suicidal thoughts, and drug and alcohol abuse in an environment where he is surrounded by the chaos of all these risk factors. How has Katy’s forgiveness impacted his life? And what about the lives of those with whom he will come in contact in the future? This has truly made the difference between a life of destruction versus a life of healing, for everyone involved.

Katy continues to forward forgiveness in her presentations to schools and communities across the globe. Tomorrow is “Pay it Forward Day.” Let’s take Katy’s example and Forward Forgiveness on a day especially dedicated to passing on goodness and kindness.

Should I Forgive?

Excerpt from pages 37-38 of the book, The Forgiving Life by Dr. Robert Enright:

“Not everyone agrees that forgiveness is morally good. For example, in 1887, Nietzsche said that only the weak forgive. In other words, if you have to keep a job, then you forgive. If you find another job, then you can boldly tell that boss where he can go as you strut out the door. Yet, is this philosopher Nietzsche talking about genuine forgiveness? I don’t think so. To forgive is to deliberately offer goodness in the face of your own pain to the one who was unfair to you. This is an act of great courage, not weakness. Forgiveness—like justice or patience or kindness or love—is a virtue and all virtues are concerned with the exercise of goodness. It is always appropriate to be good to others, if you so choose and are ready to do so. As a caution, if you have only $1 to feed a hungry child and you get a phone call to please give mercifully to the local animal shelter, you should not exercise goodness toward the shelter if it means depriving your child of basic needs. Yet, if the circumstances are right and if you have an honest motive to give mercy to someone who hurt you, then going ahead with forgiveness is morally good. Why? Because you are freely offering kindness or respect or generosity or even love (or all four together) and this might change you and the other person and others in the world. Even if no one is changed by what you do, it is always good (given the right motivation and circumstance) to offer mercy in a world that seems to turn its collective back on such an act too often.”

Extreme Forgiveness

There has been an increased media attention on forgiveness in the form of news, documentaries, web-posts, etc. All of which are not surprisingly, on the sensational side, highlighting the most severe cases of injustice in which the victim must exercise “extreme forgiveness.” It seems similar to the growing popularity of “extreme sports” with events showcasing sensational, risky, attention-grabbing feats of extreme fitness, endurance, strength, and athleticism. Events like Tough Mudder and Iron Man, or sports such as free-style biking, BASE jumping, and speed skiing keep taking extreme to the next level. More and more, it seems the more dangerous the better; marathons, for example, are no longer extreme enough. A mere marathon has been topped with “ultra-marathons,” which can mean anything from a double marathon to a multiday race of 1000 miles or longer.

It can make one wonder, what is this drive, this need, for the extreme in our lives? Why this desire to see and witness others pushed to and beyond the normal limit of human capacity? Why does there seem to be such a focus on extreme cases while we brush over every day acts of heroism and virtue?

Are we becoming desensitized, less attentive and less responsive to every day struggles — our own and others? Is the media being driven by our demand for the extreme or are we being shaped and desensitized by the media’s push of the extreme?

I’m not sure which it is, the media or public demand, driving us to extremes, but I do think a reality check may be in order. This is not to diminish the true courage, compassion, and perseverance of those heroes who have forgiven in extreme cases of injustice. Rather, this is to point out what preceded those extreme acts of forgiveness…namely, the “small” acts of forgiveness we persevere in every day. How does one push past the so-called “normal” limits of human capacity, whether it’s sports or forgiveness?

When we witness extreme acts of forgiveness, we may wonder, would I be able to forgive someone if they did that to me? Would I be able to ever forgive someone who murdered my loved one? Who crippled me? Who abandoned me? The answer is “yes!” Does this unconditional answer seem a bit over the top, a little abnormal, counter-cultural? Well, it is! Forgiveness tends to be that way. How can I be so certain that forgiveness is possible? It’s called training. Much like an athlete trains for his sport, so too a forgiver strengthens his “muscles” of virtue and forgiveness through every-day forgiveness. Forgiveness becomes part of our lives as we practice it daily the best we can, as often as we can. Each time we forgive, it becomes easier and more ingrained into our being. And here’s the beauty of it — it’s never too late to forgive! We can even forgive those who we may not have been ready to forgive before.

Further, forgiveness is a process! This means, we can even forgive the same person, for the same injustice, over and over again, reaching new levels of forgiveness each time. The process of forgiveness takes times and cannot be forced or faked for true healing to begin. We should never expect others to forgive, nor should we allow ourselves to be coerced into forgiving. If and when this kind of “forced forgiveness” takes place, it is not true forgiveness; rather, it is a lie, a façade, often to appease others’ expectations. Take the example used in this documentary review from the Huffington Post:

In the case of the Amish shooting, theologians and counselors in the film also wonder if there is a kind of violence to the self that such a quick forgiveness might inflict. They worry that the suppression of natural emotions might stunt healing; and that a legalistic understanding of forgiveness could short-circuit the full response that such a tragedy requires. In a chilling anecdote, two boys are watching the destruction of the school house where the murders took place and one boy says: “They can take down our school, but they can’t take away the things we remember.” To which another boy replied: “You better be quiet don’t let people hear you say that — we are supposed to forgive.”

Hopefully, in their analysis, these theologians and counselors considered the fact that there is a difference between genuine forgiveness that is freely given (if and when a person chooses to do so) and forced forgiveness in which it is coerced. In the latter case, the victim may go through the actions in order to appear to forgive, but true forgiveness is an internal act of free will. So unless our exterior actions are motivated by the internal actions of the heart, they do not constitute real forgiveness, and may indeed do more harm than good. So, as in the above statement, “You better be quiet; don’t let people hear you say that” we are supposed to forgive. Not only does this response reveal that some kind of coercion may be taking place (or at least in the young boy’s perception), but also a deep lack of understanding about what forgiveness is. He seems to think that unless his friend forgets the incident, he is not forgiving. However, his friend’s remembering in no way conflicts with forgiveness. On the contrary, his friend has made a realistic and poignant point that is very much consistent with what it means to forgive. Forgiveness does not take away the things you remember. When you forgive, you remember what happened, but you begin to remember in new ways that give healing and hope. A false form of forgiveness may be occurring if one is under the misconception that by pushing the memory away, he is forgiving. This attempt to forget will more likely lead to suppression of his emotions rather than the healing that true forgiveness could give.

So let us make a distinction between this kind of forced or misconstrued forgiveness and what the author above calls, “quick forgiveness.” We should be careful to distinguish between true forgiveness and pseudo-forgiveness as in the example above. We should also be careful in how we identify or label these false forms of forgiveness in order to avoid distorting the meaning of forgiveness. “Quick forgiveness” seems to imply that the act of forgiveness has been completed and done in the moment of stating, “I forgive.” Now, if a person stopped short there, by simply saying, “okay, I forgive, moving on now,” then, certainly, that would not seem to be a sufficient, much less healthy response. Again, this would be a form of false or pseudo-forgiveness. We need to remember that choosing to forgive is only the first step in the process and it doesn’t end there. The process starts with a freely-given choice, but can continue for days, weeks, months, and even years. Surely, in the case of the Amish school shootings, the victims will be recovering and working on forgiveness for a long time to come.

Theirs is a process that began with a unified statement and gesture of forgiveness as a community and will continue within each individual heart. It is a process for which each of them has been preparing for by living out forgiveness in their daily lives. This is a process in which they will need to support each other in their daily struggles to forgive.

So when asked if you could forgive as some victims of the Amish shooting, the Rwanda genocide, or the Nazi holocaust have, you can say, yes. Will we be able to forgive overnight? Do we need to choose forgiveness immediately? Will it be a “quick forgiveness,” done and over in a single breath? No, it won’t happen overnight or in a single act of the will. No, we don’t need to be ready to forgive sooner than we are ready. But with a clear understanding of true forgiveness, in its full scope and sequence, and by living the forgiving life through small acts of forgiveness, we can be prepared to exercise extreme forgiveness, should we ever need to. You might not be able to choose forgiveness immediately as the Amish did, and forgiving certainly won’t be easy, but it can happen when we are prepared by living an every-day forgiving life. Yes, extreme forgiveness is possible!