Our Forgiveness Blog
Unlikely Friends – Documentary Film Captures Five Forgiveness Stories
By Leslie Neale, Chance Films, Inc.
Would you become friends with the person who shot you or killed your only son?
For most of us this is unimaginable.
There are those, however, who in order to understand the crime have reached through the bars to connect with and then surprisingly befriend the criminals who devastated their lives.
This is the premise of my newly completed film, Unlikely Friends, a feature length documentary narrated by acclaimed actor, Mike Farrell, telling the heroic journey that five victims of horrific, violent crime choose to walk.
The seeds of this film were planted many years ago when I met Nelson, a bank robber featured in my first documentary, Road to Return. Nelson told me he was consumed with an overriding compulsion to go back to the bank he robbed once he was released from prison and APOLOGIZE.
He told me the story of sitting around a conference table in a small town community bank tucked in the rural banks of Louisiana, sharing pictures of one another’s families with the bank’s employees and swapping stories of their lives. They were all crying. The teller, who Nelson held a gun to 12 years prior, finally looked up at him with tears streaming down her face and said, “Thank you. Thank you for coming back here and apologizing because for 12 years I have not been able to get you out of my mind, and I have lived in fear you would come back and kill me.” I thought to myself the brilliance in that simple act of forgiveness. I immediately understood the implications, not only for his heart to be unburdened from the weight of knowing he harmed innocent strangers but also for the victim to be released from the terror of that nightmare. She was finally able to let go of her obsessive thoughts and fears.
This story convinced me to make a film on the concept of forgiveness, to explore how it might be used to affect positive change within our criminal justice system.
Nelson told me that it took him eight years to realize the damaging effects of what he had done. He had left a couple of precious stamps on his bunk “his only link to the outside world” and another inmate stole them. He vowed then to apologize to those he robbed if and when he got out.
The cornerstone to any true and lasting rehabilitation is taking full accountability for what you’ve done. Victims and offenders coming together in victim offender dialogues can be the catalyst for that connection to be made. Forgiveness is not expected from these dialogues but when it happens, it is life changing for both.
Debbie wanted the death penalty for Gabriel, the man who killed her only son. She says she was eaten up with anger and bitterness before she forgave him. In turn, Gabriel shares that her forgiveness affects every action he now takes–if she can forgive him, then he can forgive all the daily transgressions that occur around him in prison. Most of us think theses stories are the exception. Yet, I was surprised to find more stories than I could tell. There are many people who have forgiven acts that most of us deem unforgivable–and the numbers are growing.
Watch a short outtake from the film.
Guest Blog by Leslie Neale, Chance Films, Inc.
Forgive and Forget: What Does It Mean? Is It Dangerous?
Here is a syllogism for you:
Premise #1: To forget is to not remember in the sense of moving on and not letting the emotional effects of injustices bother us any more.
Premise #2: To forgive is to forget.
Conclusion: Therefore, when we forgive, we do not remember what happened to us, making us vulnerable to continued injustice.
Implication:
When we fail to remember what happened to us, this can be dangerous because we might let others again take advantage of us.
Because forgiveness might hasten our not remembering, forgiveness is dangerous.
What is wrong with the above argument?
In logic, we have just committed the fallacy of equivocation. By this we mean that there are two very different meanings of at least one word in the argument. The first use of the term “forget” in Premise #1 equates to “moving on” or “putting the injustice behind us.”
The second use of the term “forget” in the Conclusion of the syllogism equates to a kind of amnesia, a blotting out of what happened rather than a moving on from what happened.
Yes, when we forgive we forget (meaning #1) in that we move on.
No, when we forgive we do not forget (meaning #2) in that we can no longer remember anything of what happened, making us vulnerable to another’s continued injustice.
To forgive is to forget in a certain meaning of that term and given that meaning, to forgive is not dangerous, at least not in the sense of “dangerous” meant here.
Dr. Bob
The Light of Forgiveness
This might help you understand what it is you are doing when you forgive. We are in a dark room, which represents the disorder of unjust treatment toward you. As you stumble around for a match to light a candle, this effort of groping in the dark for a positive solution represents part of the struggle to forgive. As you now light the candle, the room is illumined by both the light and warmth of the candle. When you forgive, you offer warmth and light to the one who created the darkness.
You destroy the darkness in your forgiving.
Now here is what I am guessing you did not know about the light of forgiveness: That light does not just stay in that little room. It goes out from there to others and it even continues to give light across time. For example, if you shed light and warmth on a person who has bad habits, he or she might be changed by your forgiveness and pass it along to others in the future.
Now consider this: If you give this warm candle of forgiveness to your children who give it to their children, then this one little candle’s light can continue across many generations, long after you are no longer here on earth.
I am guessing that you had not thought about forgiveness in quite this way before.
Dr. Bob
Reality Is Constructed
I was in conversation with a fellow academic recently and we were discussing the perceptions of history as they have emerged in Bosnia and Serbia as well as in Northern Ireland. We both have seen how opposing sides in an entrenched conflict tend to develop different stories of their histories. For example, let us take Bloody Sunday, 1972 in Northern Ireland, in which Irish demonstrators were shot by British soldiers. Even with commission reports trying to clarify definitively what happened that fateful day, both sides still have their advocates who make the strong claim that the other side shot first.
My colleague responded to this reality, that both sides construct their own histories, to say, “Reality is constructed.” Is this the case? Let us examine this because it has direct implications for forgiveness.
Is reality whatever we construct in our own minds? If so, then suppose a 6-year-old writes on his math quiz that 2+2=5. Suppose he says this is correct. He then is correct by this view (that reality is constructed) if—if—he continues to believe this true after the teacher marks it wrong and tries to explain the rules of mathematics to him, which he rejects. In Italian language class, if one student writes down that “horse” is translated as “cavallo” and another claims it is “ciuco,” and insists despite the protestations of the instructor, then both are correct. Why? Because they have constructed their own views and to construct one’s own views is to construct reality, at least that is the premise under consideration.
I hope you realize that we have just created a world of relativism in which the only right answer is the one each of us generates.
Yet, this cannot be the case because 2+2 is never 5 and a horse is never a donkey.
Is forgiveness, then, whatever we construct it as being in our own minds? Why would we wish to think this if the rules of mathematics and language (and rules of grammar for that matter) do matter? Why would something as time-honored as the rules of the moral virtues all of a sudden take on a relative twist to them when other, important rules for human interaction are absolute (not relative) and objective (not subjective in any meaningful sense)?
If you think about it, the basic understanding of what forgiveness is has not changed across historical time (if our starting point is the Hebrew scriptures), nor has it differed across the various ancient traditions of the Hebrew, Christian, Muslim, or Hindu systems.
“Reality is constructed.” I think that is a construction of some minds. And if that is true, that the statement itself is constructed, then why take the time to try to believe it? It simply came from someone’s mind who says that there are no definitive rules to reality. If this is so, then there cannot be a rule that “reality is constructed.” In trying to make an absolute and objective statement that we all construct our own reality, he just rendered his own premise false.
Long live the absolute and objective meaning of forgiveness. And what is that meaning? Let us start here: “What is Forgiveness?”
Dr. Bob
Starting the Journey of Forgiveness with Courage
It takes steadfast courage to finally decide, “I will forgive.”
So often we know in our mind, through reason, that forgiveness is the right path. Yet, we are hesitant to begin the journey. What if it proves to be too painful? What if I get lost along the way and do not know how to forgive? What if it comes out all wrong?
“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
We at the International Forgiveness Institute, Inc. are here to support you as you begin the life-giving journey of forgiveness.
Dr. Bob
