Courage

Barriers to Forgiveness, Part 5: Not Knowing How to Forgive

“But, I just don’t know how to forgive.  How do I go about it?”

I have heard this so often…..and it breaks my heart because it should not happen.  How have people’s teachers somehow failed to show a growing child the path to forgiveness? Don’t we work hard—very hard—to show a child how to find his or her way home so that, when lost, there is a map in the memory?  Why do we fail to work even harder to place the map of forgiveness in a child’s mind?  To have to grope in the dark for the forgiveness path when one’s heart is bleeding is not fair.  When we neglect to show children the path out of darkness and into the light of forgiveness, we are neglecting a key point of being human….a key point in surviving tragedy and others’ mayhem.

Children need forgiveness education to know that, when forgiving, a first step is the freedom to admit injury.  Another has withdrawn love from me and I am hurting.

Facing such a reality helps people to see the injustice for what it is.  It can give a person courage to look injustice in the eye and call it by its name.  Such courage can propel a person to commit to forgiving, committing to reducing resentment and offering goodness in spite of the hurt.

The courage helps a forgiver to then see the inherent worth of the one who did the hurting…..not because of what was done, but in spite of it.

The courage helps the forgiver to let compassion grow in the heart as a response of mercy to those who have not had mercy on the forgiver. Eventually, the forgiver begins to find meaning in the suffering and to reach out to the offender, at least within reason so that the forgiver protects the self from further serious injury.

This path is vital to a restored emotional health.  We need to see this and to have the courage to teach children how to forgive so that they do not ask, in confusion, as adults: “How do I forgive?  I do not know the path.”

Robert

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Barriers to Forgiveness, Part 3: Pride

C.S. Lewis once noted that pride is that tendency to find pleasure in moving other people around like toy soldiers.  Pride seeks to win, to be superior, to have the light shining on the self.

When we are treated unjustly by another, then perhaps it is that other person who has moved us around as if we were toy soldiers.  It is at this time that resentment can take hold of us and if we are not able now to competitively move our injurer around like a toy soldier, we dig the trench of resentment and stay there for the battle.

If the other does not apologize, we do not want to budge from our pride-trench.  The central problem of waiting for the other to admit defeat is this: Too often those who hurt us do not apologize.

What we need is an antidote to pride, something that will extend a warm hand and help us out of the trench.  The antidote is the virtue of humility, a virtue that the philosopher Nietzsche looked on with distain, calling it a “monkish virtue.”  It is apparent that Nietzsche’s philosophy valued power and so he wanted nothing to do with humility.

The major problem with detesting humility is that sometimes the other’s power over us remains, despite our best efforts.  If all we have left is our pride-trench, then the other’s power could defeat us in an emotional sense as we develop unhealthy anger and even anxiety and depression.

To combat the barrier of pride, we need to value and practice humility, that sense that we need not always get our way and that power is an impostor not worthy of following.  With humility, we do not meet power with power.  Yes, we meet power with a call for justice, but this is very different from pride, which calls for its pound of flesh from the other.  Once we have developed the virtue of humility, which gets us out of our pride-trench, we are free to begin forgiving, which can actually eliminate the resentment so that it no longer has power over us.

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Barriers to Forgiveness, Part 2: Hatred

“A little hatred goes a long, long way. It grows and grows. And it’s hungry. You keep feeding it more and more people, and the more it gets, the more it wants. It’s never satisfied. And pretty soon it squeezes all the love out of your heart and all you’ll have left is a hateful heart.” –Jerry Spinelli in Love, Stargirl    

In other words, hatred is an insatiable monster that demands its supposed due. When people hate, they can all too easily create the rationalization that the other deserves bad things, deserves to be punished…..and by the one who hates.

Hatred clouds the mind as it freezes the heart.  And it does so slowly enough that the one now with the clouds and freezings was not even aware of this progression from a sunny mind and a warm heart.  Yet, it can happen.  Scrooge in A Christmas Carol; the final scene in Dr. Seuss’ The Butter Battle Book; the list is long.

Eventually, hatred becomes self-righteous; the person believes deep within the self that the hatred is not only justified but also moral.  It becomes a quest and even a way of life…….until it turns on the one with the self-righteousness and the sense of the moral quest…..and destroys him.

With hatred, forgiveness is not allowed to grow.  With courage, a person can begin to see hatred within and stand against it, giving forgiveness a chance to grow and to redeem and to lighten and to unthaw.

Robert

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On a Steadfast Heart

Stand when you are treated unfairly, knowing that the other has created disorder.

Stand so that you do not become a part of that disorder.

Forgive so that you put love into a situation that could break you, that could make you disordered.

Love persistently so that you put goodness back into a world that is tempting you toward anger and bitterness.

Wait for love to come to you and keep your heart soft through forgiveness so that you are able to receive that love when it is offered to you.

Robert

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Guest Blog: The Human Spirit Is Not Broken

There are moments when the human body may be stripped of its physical skills, but the human spirit is not broken.

Here is the story of a lady who is a testament to that. The year was 1989 and 26-year-old Laura Chagnon was merely walking down a Boston street. She didn’t know that would be the day her life would take a 180 degree turn. She was the victim of a senseless assault by one or more people; the detectives never caught the individual(s).

 

More important was the result, one minute ambulatory, Laura was now quadriplegic, legally blind with a head injury. To this day, her short-term memory is not very good. She was in a coma for 5 weeks and came out of it feeling a sense of loss. Her legs were no longer her legs because now she could not walk. She could no longer use her hands.

Four years in physical rehabilitation facilities followed. Doctors told her parents that her cognitive ability was minimal and to save the aggravation and put her in an institution for the rest of her life. They refused, their unconditional love was stronger than the doctor’s advice. The doctors said Laura would be a vegetable, still her parents would not break.

In 1993, Laura returned to live at home with her parents. She had caregivers around the clock to be her eyes and hands. She would not let life be a pity party and wanted to be a productive member of society. Laura started to dictate sentences to her caregivers and the sentences evolved into poems. One poem after another, each day more poems. Now, her identity changed, she didn’t feel like a quadriplegic woman, she proudly said she was a poet. Laura’s poems were of very good quality and were printed in local newspapers. She told people she was some day going to be a published poet with her book of poetry to be shared with the world.

She had no malice for whomever assaulted her. Laura simply said, “I traded my legs for the opportunity to write poetry.”

Let’s fast forward to the present. Laura has written over 5,000 poems. The doctors would be astonished. She is a shining example of overcoming adversity and not ever doubting the human spirit. Oh, by the way, that crazy dream of hers, to become a published poet: Laura met a publisher in June of 2013. He read some of her poems and was amazed. He said, “Laura Chagnon deserves to be published.”

For more than 20 years, her poetry was basically a well kept secret. If you read her works, I think you would agree she can hold her own with any poet out there. Now anybody can be the judge of that. Her published book, “Never Touched A Pen” the inspiring poetry of Laura Chagnon can be ordered at www.civinmediarelations.com.

Thomas Damoulakis

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