Consequences of Forgiving
Forgiveness as Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
We all quest after these three qualities of life: truth, goodness, and beauty. Too often, those who hurt us are not standing in the truth of who we are, they are not behaving in a morally good way toward us, and the outcome surely is not beautiful.
Those who hurt us leave a mess behind: a distortion of truth, goodness, and beauty.
Truth tells us who we are as persons. We are all special, unique, and irreplaceable. All persons have inherent worth.
Goodness conforms to truth. When we realize that all persons are special and possess inherent worth, our response of goodness should include fairness toward all as well as kindness, respect, generosity, and love.
Beauty is defined by goodness. If we are to respond to others with fairness, kindness, respect, generosity, and love, then we have to express this well from the heart.
So, how do we clean up the mess left behind by those who are cruel?
We should try to forgive with truth, goodness, and beauty. How do we do this?
In truth, we have to start forgiveness by understanding it clearly. Even when someone is cruel to us, the truth is that this person is special, unique, and irreplaceable. Even if this person has hurt us, he/she has inherent worth.
In goodness, even when someone is cruel to us, the challenge of goodness compels us to respond with fairness, kindness, respect, generosity, and love. Yes, even toward those who are cruel to us.
In beauty, even when someone is cruel to us, the challenge of beauty is to transform our hearts so that all of the goodness is not forced but is given willingly as a gift to that person.
As we apply truth, goodness, and beauty to those who have acted unfairly toward us, we not only help to clean up the mess left behind but also we are doing our part to make the world a more beautiful place.
Robert
“Mommy, how do lady bugs protect themselves?”
Today I was on an airplane from Atlanta, Georgia to Madison, Wisconsin. Two rows in back of me were a mother and her precocious and inquisitive four-year-old daughter, who asked, “Mommy, how do lady bugs protect themselves?” I doubt the mother ever heard a question like that. I never have.
It was such a tenderhearted question. Here is the little girl in an airplane and she is concerned about bugs and their protection. Because children are so vulnerable, I wonder if they are particularly sensitive to this issue of protection.
We should all be like children and have this sensitivity. Every person on the planet is fragile in a certain way and therefore needs protection.
Forgiveness is a form of protection. It can protect the dignity of the wrongdoer. It can protect the emotional health of the one harmed. Forgiveness can protect a relationship that is now at-risk. Forgiveness can even protect communities from on-going anger that can pervade neighborhoods, separate people, and leave a blight that depresses economies. After all, communities continually in contention do not receive the tourist dollars and governments often turn away, ever if subtly, from such communities with high rates of violence.
We are one-up on the lady bugs. They do not know of forgiveness. We surely must not forget about forgiveness as we go about our busy lives. We need the protection.
Robert
Tips for Controlling Anger
Many sites offer advice on how to control your anger. The Mayo Clinic, for example, lists ten tips. Among them are: take a time out, get some exercise, and forgive. Of course, the time out is a temporary solution. After the short time has elapsed the problem or its aftermath may be right there staring at you. Exercise can be a release of tension, but again the problem or its after-burn may be there to greet you the next day. Forgiveness, in contrast, offers a permanent solution to the emotional disruption. The seeking of a proper justice may be necessary to rectify an unfair situation.
The American Psychological Association is now saying that a continual expression of one’s anger (getting it off one’s chest, as the expression goes) is dangerous because it can accelerate the intense negative feeling. Forgiveness, in contrast, soothes that potentially destructive feeling.
Helpguide.org sees the situation quite similarly to the advice above: take some time out, exercise, and do not continually vent. This site, too, suggests forgiveness as an option.
Yet, how does one forgive? Proclaiming it as good and actually accomplishing the task are quite different. We have many resources here on our site to help with forgiveness-as-anger reduction (among many other goals). You can view our blog posts on anger. You can begin to get a sense of the forgiveness process. Finally, there are books and curriculum guides in our Store.
Forgive and live well.
Robert
On Bearing the Pain
One of the paradoxes of forgiveness is that as we give mercy to those who showed no mercy to us, we are doing moral good. Another paradox is this: As we bear the pain of the injustice, that pain does not crush us but instead strengthens us and helps us to heal emotionally.
When we bear the pain of what happened to us, we are not absorbing depression or anger or anxiety. Instead we realize that we have been treated unfairly—-it did happen. We do not run from that and we do not try to hurriedly cast off the emotional pain that is now ours. We quietly live with that pain so that we do not toss it back to the one who hurt us (because we are having mercy on that person). We live with that pain so that we do not displace the anger onto others who were not even part of the injustice (our children or co-workers, for example).
When we bear the pain we begin to see that we are strong, stronger actually than the offense and original pain. We can stand with the pain and in so doing become conduits of good for others.
Today, let us acknowledge our pain and practice a paradox: Let us quietly bear that pain and then watch it lift.
Robert
On Evil…..Its Perpetuation….and Its Destruction
What is evil? Is it a thing, something in existence? Is it the opposite of good?
Good appears to be embodied in being, in people for example. Goodness has a quality of a thing, something that exists in being. If evil is the opposite of good, then it too exists as a thing in being.
If evil exists as a thing, then God does not exist. Why? Because if God exists and is good, then evil cannot be created and exist, otherwise God is not good. In other words, if God creates evil then we are mistaken that the creator is all good and therefore we are mistaken about the creator-as-creator.
We have four possibilities: 1) God exists and has created evil (a contradiction and so we can dismiss this one); 2) God exists and has not created evil (although it can exist, just not as a created thing); 3) God does not exist (as monotheism describes God) and evil exists as a thing (as goodness exists as a thing). In this case we have a form of ancient Manichaeism which suggested a struggle between good (as a spiritual thing, but not with the attributes of the monotheistic God) and evil (as a material thing). Augustine of Hippo eventually came to dismiss this premise because this way of living condoned evil (after all, if it exists alongside good, and defines the physical world, it cannot be all that bad); or 4) neither exists.
So, the two premises with the fewest contrary or contradictory aspects are #2 and 4: God exists and evil is not a thing (a creation of a good creator), or God does not exist (with the attributes as outlines by monotheistic theology) and evil does not exist other than perhaps as an illusion.
We will develop point #2 and allow atheists/materialists to voice their view in #4.
If evil is not a thing, then what is it? Augustine of Hippo solved this problem (of whether or not evil exists) by arguing that evil exists as the absence of good. It is not an opposite thing to good. Instead it is the absence of that which is good. (We are not saying that people are evil. Instead, we are interested in evil as evil and not as embodied or not in persons.)
If evil exists, then, how does it continue to exist? How is it perpetuated? I think evil continues to exist as viruses continue to exist: Each has to seek a host on which to prey to continue in existence. In other words, evil must somehow (the mechanism of this need not concern us here) have an effect upon good so that it ceases to be good or at least fully good. It invades good, in a certain sense. (As a virus cannot be 100% effective in destroying all hosts lest it become extinguished, evil cannot be 100% effective lest it has no more hosts).
To continue to exist, a virus then needs to continually inhabit other hosts. Evil, then, must go from the goodness in one being to another being. Evil has to spread to continue in existence.
I think that resentment is a primary mechanism for evil to continually find new hosts in which to exist. Why? Because resentment is the seed of rage and revenge. If we can destroy the mechanism by which evil seeks new hosts, then evil is destroyed (because it no longer can jump from host to host, as a virus does.)
Forgiveness is the means by which resentment no longer exists. Forgiveness, therefore, destroys the pathway of evil from one person to another. Forgiveness stops the spread of the disease of evil as sound hygiene stops the spread of viruses.
Forgiveness not only provides the mechanism by which evil no longer can spread from host to host but also forgiveness stops the effects of evil within any one host (person). Forgiveness eradicates the resentment (with its concomitant anger, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and hopelessness) destroying the effects of evil.
Forgiveness, then, has a vital role to play in destroying both evil itself and the effects of evil.
Long live forgiveness. Is forgiveness a thing? We will ponder this one another time. Well, ok, here is the answer: Good exists as a thing. Forgiveness is part of the good. Therefore, forgiveness exists as a thing. If forgiveness exists as a thing, then what is it? From the viewpoint of monotheistic theology, it is an attribute of God and is therefore a thing. Atheists, you may come in with a different viewpoint, which we will respectfully consider.
Robert
