Is This the One Weakness in Forgiveness as a Moral Virtue?

Suppose that Angela has been friends with Barretta who has neglected the friendship now for over a year. Barretta’s flaw is of a passive nature, not being present in the friendship. The neglect has hurt Angela.

Angela sees that Barretta is not a good friend and decides to end the friendship despite her active attempts to reconcile. At the same time, she forgives her. Her forgiveness leaves open a kind of sisterly-love for Barretta that now makes it more difficult to leave the friendship.

In this case, is forgiveness a process that is standing in the way of the truth: that Barretta will not make even a reasonably minimal friend for her? Her feelings of sisterly-affection, which are kept alive by forgiving, are making her re-think her decision to leave a friendship that holds no future if Barretta’s behavior remains as it is.

In this case, is forgiveness a weakness in that Angela retains affection that continues to hurt her? The short answer is no, forgiveness itself is not weakness, but the failure to make distinctions in this case could be the weakness. Here are some important distinctions for Angela to make:

1. There is a difference between forgiving-love and sisterly-love toward Barretta. Agape is a love in service to others as we see and appreciate their inherent worth. Philia (brotherly- or sisterly-love) is the kind of love that is mutual between two or more people. In the case of Angela and Barretta, the love is no longer mutual. If Angela makes this distinction, then she will see that philia no longer is operating between them

2. There is a difference between feeling warm toward someone and the pair acting on it in friendship. While Angela might feel a warmth for Barretta, kept alive by forgiveness, she cannot let her feelings dictate her actions. She must stand in the truth and do so with a strong will. A strong will works in conjunction with the soft feelings of forgiveness.

3. There is a difference between practicing forgiveness as a lone moral virtue and practicing it alongside justice. When forgiveness and justice are teammates, Angela is more likely to conclude that even though she has warm feelings for Barretta, there are certain troubling behaviors she shows that work against a true reconciliation (because Barretta remains without remorse, with no signs of repentance, and no signs of making things right).

4. While it is true that her vigilance in forgiving may keep alive agape love in her heart (with accompanying warm feelings toward Barretta), those feelings, while perhaps uncomfortable, are not nearly as uncomfortable or damaging as resentment. Forgiveness will not lead to a pain-free solution in this case. It will lead to standing in the truth of who Barretta is (a person of worth) and whom she is incapable of being to her (in the role of friend). It will lead to feelings that may be uncomfortable (the warmth of agape without appropriating this in a friendship with Barretta) but manageable. Angela needs to distinguish between the discomfort of a retained agape love and the considerably more uncomfortable feelings of resentment.

When these distinctions are made, forgiveness is not a weakness even in this example.

Dr. Bob

Nelly and Tracey and Inherent Worth

Do you know Nelly and Tracey? Nelly is from Cork, Ireland as my paternal grandparents were. She is now in Dublin. Nelly has a sore on her leg, is four months pregnant, and is homeless. She has kind eyes. Nelly also has desperate eyes. She does not like to beg, but she does. It is not beneath her. She is carrying a child.

Nelly is invisible to society.

Tracey has a stroller in which she pushes her two infants. She, too, is in Dublin. She has been living in a youth hostel because her partner was very abusive to her. Each day she and her little ones are one day away from being homeless. She, like Nelly, has desperate eyes.

Tracey and her two babies, just like Nelly, are invisible to society.

But, Dr. Seuss says that “a person’s a person no matter how small.”

Therefore, Nelly and her little one growing within and Tracey and her little ones are persons no matter how invisible they are to society.

Nelly and her little one and Tracey and her little ones have inherent worth.

I hope that they see that in themselves.

All people have inherent worth, built-in worth no matter what. Even if they have been abandoned and scorned and cast aside, all of these persons are persons of inherent worth….

…….even the men who cast them aside. The casting aside is not right. Yet, the key here is to train our minds to see all of these persons as they are: people of inherent worth.

Dr. Bob

On Persecution

So much persecution in the world today. I recently reported an abusive Facebook page, constructed to demean a good man who stands strong in his convictions. Earlier, I tried to help a school that lost a child to suicide because of bullying. So much persecution in the world.

If persecution happens to you, please carefully note this: You have a weapon against the attempt to demean you. You have forgiveness at your side. Take up this weapon and see the other as wounded, as trying to hurt because he or she has been hurt by others. See that your love is stronger than any persecution you may face. How I wish the child who took her own life knew of this weapon against cruelty.

Dr. Bob

Novelty vs. Repetition

OK, class, it is time for a few questions. If you “google” the word “forgiveness,” how many hits will you get? Right, 54 million. How about if you google the term “current films”? Right again, 519 million. One more: What if you google the word “chocolate”? How did you know? You are right, 704 million hits.

We are being overwhelmed by novelty. If you spent your life (and you could spend your life plus more lifetimes) clicking on each of the “chocolate” hits on google, and spent one minute on each, it would take you approximately 1339 years to do so. So much chocolate….so little time.

My point is this: We are rarely reinforced in our societies these days for engaging in repetition. After all, there is one more “chocolate” hit waiting for us on google, one more current film site to visit.

Yet, Aristotle impressed upon us the need for repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. I can see you growing weary just reading that previous sentence. Nonetheless, the point of today’s post is this: We must resist the temptation of always looking for the next novelty item in our over-stimulated world. We must not forget the repetition and to forgive well means to engage in the repetition of forgiveness over and over and over again.

Novelty vs repetition. Novelty is winning in today’s world. Aristotle would not be amused.

Dr. Bob

Helpful Forgiveness Hint

When you are trying to forgive a person now for a recent injustice and you find yourself having trouble forgiving, please try this: Think about someone in your past who hurt you in a similar way. Have you forgiven this person from your past? If not, then he or she may be the stumbling block for your forgiving a person now.

Take some time to go back in time and repair your heart from the previous person and incident. Once your anger is diminished from that, then try forgiving the present person for the present injustice.

You see, you may have double-anger now, at the present person and the past person. Eliminating your anger from the past may free you a little more to forgive those in the present.

Dr. Bob