Our Forgiveness Blog

What Happens When News Media Get It Wrong Regarding Forgiveness?

While browsing the Internet today, I came across a piece from National Public Radio dated March 11, 2013. It has the ominous title, “Forgiveness Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be.”

Let us examine their points to see if they are true. The program included an advice columnist, Emily Yoffe and psychiatrist, Richard Friedman.

An opening salvo comes from Yoffe, who describes myriad letters she receives from people whose parents are old, sick, and who never were there for the son or daughter when growing up. She thinks it can be inappropriate to forgive with this statement, “…there can be a tremendous cost to the person who was abused to go back to the abuser and say, all is forgiven.”

Our rebuttal: When we forgive we do not have to go to the person and proclaim it. We can forgive from the heart and keep our distance if the other is abusive.

When it was Dr. Friedman’s turn he said this, “…to ask these people to go back and try to, quote, ‘repair’ their relationship with their parents would do more harm than good.”

Our rebuttal: To forgive is not necessarily to repair a relationship. That is the job of reconciliation. To equate forgiveness and reconciliation is to distort the meaning of each. Forgiveness is a moral virtue and one can offer the virtue of mercy to another without reconciling. Reconciliation is not a moral virtue but instead is a negotiation strategy of two or more people coming together again in mutual trust.

Emily Yoffe then reiterates the moral equality of forgiveness and reconciliation when she says this, “People can be re-victimized by the sense that you must forgive and move on, and that’s going to mean reconciliation and helping.”

Our rebuttal: We should not swing at forgiveness and give it a black eye when we really mean to swing at a different target, reconciliation.

Forgiveness is not all it’s cracked up to be. If this is so, the NPR program certainly did not defend this premise. Instead, it engaged in distortions and perhaps gave itself a black eye.

Robert

So, Do We Forgive Evil or Persons Who Perpetrate Evil?

Consider this quotation from the late great Dr. Lewis Smedes:

When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it.

I am sure that Dr. Smedes was being poetic to drive home a point about how we are to respond to evil. He was not being literal.

If this is the case, then we need to ask this: Why do we forgive persons and not evil per se? The answer lies in what the essence of forgiveness is. It is a moral virtue and all moral virtues flow out from us to others—to other people—for their good. We are just or fair so that people can live a good life of order rather than chaos. We are patient so that people can correct imperfections, as only one example of how patience is used for good.

When we forgive, it is directly for the other, for the one who was unjust. It gives him or her a chance to correct the evil, to reach for the higher aspects of what it means to be human. Evil is not an entity. It is not a thing. We cannot interact with it. We surely experience its effects, but there is no interaction with it. Instead, there is interaction with people who house the evil, who give it a chance to exist as a deprivation of the good.

Thank you, Dr. Smedes, for your poetic image. It has helped us deepen our understanding of forgiveness.

Robert

Your Unfolding Love Story Continues

Memorial Day: a chance to reflect on those who gave of themselves for causes larger than their own survival. We thank you for leaving a legacy of love. Now it is our turn. Shall we strive to leave our own legacy of love on this earth?

The time is shorter than we think. If we could ask each of those whose lives we honor on this Memorial Day, do you think they would say that their span of life was exactly as they had expected? In all likelihood, no.

We can start making a difference even today in adding to our Unfolding Love Story. Whom will you serve today? To whom will you extend love, perhaps in an unexpected way so that you leave that person with a smiling heart?

Adding to your Unfolding Love Story awaits. Please do not delay.

Robert

You Are a Person: You Are Not Your Pain

When someone asks about you, do you state your career or perhaps where you are in school?  You are more than your career.

Do you state your age or where you live? You are more than these.

If someone asks you how you are doing and you are in emotional pain, do you make the mistake of defining yourself by that pain?

You are more than your career or your age or where you live or the amount of pain you are in.

Who are you? Yes, all of the above characteristics are part of who you are, but who are you really?

You are a person who is special, unique, and irreplaceable. There is no one just like you on the planet. You have inherent (built-in) worth because you are a person.

You have the capacity to love and to overcome emotional pain through love and forgiveness.

You are much more than your pain….and so is the one who has caused you the pain.

Robert

Your Forgiveness Landscape

First, what is a “forgiveness landscape?” This is an expression first used in my book, The Forgiving Life, to refer to all of the people who ever have been seriously unjust to you. When people first construct their forgiveness landscape, they often are surprised at: a) how many people are on the list and b) the depth of the anger left over, even from decades ago.

When we are treated deeply unfairly by others, the anger is slow to leave. If we push that anger aside, simply thinking we have “moved on” or “forgotten all about it,” sometimes this is not the case. The anger can be in hiding, deep within the heart, and the only way to get rid of it is surgery of the heart—forgiveness.

Would you like to examine your own forgiveness landscape to see how many people in your life are still in need of your forgiveness? You might want to write down your answers to the following questions.

First set of questions: Think back to your childhood. Is there anyone who was very unfair to you and if so, what is your anger level now on a 1-to-5 scale, with 1 signifying no anger left over and a 5 signifying lots of anger when you reflect on this person and the actions toward you.

More specifically from your childhood, are there any incidents from your father that still make you angry? from your mother? a sibling?

What about from peers or teachers, is your anger still high when you recall the incidents?

Second set of questions: Let us now focus on your adolescence. Follow the pattern from the first set of questions. Then let us add any coaches, employers or fellow employees, and romantic partners to the list. Are there people who still make you angry in the 4 or 5 range of our scale?

Third set of questions: Who in your adult life has made you significantly angry, in the 4 to 5 range of anger? We can add partner, any children, relatives, friends, and neighbors to the list.

Now please rank order all of the people from those who least offended you to those who most offended you. Now look at that list to see your forgiveness landscape. There is your work, right there in the list. I recommend starting with people lower on the list. Forgive them first because they in all likelihood are the easiest to forgive because the anger is less. As you work up the list, you will gain in your expertise to forgive, which is good preparation for forgiving those on the top of the list—those who are the most challenging for you.

You can find more on this way of forgiving in the book, The Forgiving Life, which walks you systematically through this exercise. Enjoy the challenge. Enjoy the journey of forgiveness, which can set you free in so many ways.

Robert