Our Forgiveness Blog
Helpful Forgiveness Hint
As you consider forgiving another, it is important to first review what it is you are and are not doing. You will not be waiting for an apology from the other. Your forgiveness is not dependent on anyone else’s attitudes or pronouncements. You are free to forgive when you are ready. You may or may not be reconciling with the person. That depends on how the other is now responding to you. You will not be putting justice aside, but instead allowing yourself to have the mercy of forgiveness and the fairness of justice.
You will be offering goodness toward someone who has hurt you, but forgiveness will not make you a weak person through your effort. Mercy comes from a position of strength, not weakness.
Dr. Bob
In Thanksgiving for…….
On Thursday, November 22, 2012, people in the United States celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving. It is a time of fellowship and cultivating thankful hearts for loved ones. In the United States, the holiday goes back to 17th century celebrations in which settlers from England gave thanks to God for a bountiful harvest.
I am aware that many who visit our website reside in other areas of the world in which Thanksgiving is not celebrated…..but let us not be hindered by such a little detail.
On Thursday, regardless of your country of residence, may I suggest that we all cultivate a thankful heart toward at least one person who has wronged us, toward whom we may have some resentment and bitterness? I am not asking you to be thankful for the wrong-doing. Instead, I am asking you to see the person from a wide-angle lens. See him or her as a person, someone who is more than what was done to you. Try to see something good in the person, a kind act, or a loving word, or some small attempt at compassion toward another. See that goodness and be thankful that the person engaged in it. See the person as a person, capable of good will, as someone who can act unjustly and can show goodness even if the bad and the good are not evenly matched.
Be thankful for the goodness that you see or remember and in being thankful for the act, be thankful for the person.
I am thankful to each of you who will do this. You are making the world a better place by this little act of love.
Dr. Bob
Which Moral Principle Underlies Forgiveness?
Sophia: And which is the most excellent way among civility, respect, and moral love as your basis for forgiving others?
Inez: This one is easy to answer and hard to implement. Moral love encompasses civility and respect in its response and so is the most complete. Civility is the least demanding and also the least complete. I can be civil and rather detached from a person. I can even be civil without respecting the person. Even respect does not go far enough. I can respect a person who is homeless by writing out a check to the soup kitchen. That is a somewhat detached way to treat someone who is deeply suffering. Yet, if I love another, I not only must be civil and respectful, I must be more than that. In the soup-kitchen example, I must be personal with the homeless person by going to the shelter, dipping the ladle into the soup, and serving that person. Moral love asks the most of me.
Sophia: How then do you understand moral love?
Inez: It is different from romantic love or brotherly love or the natural love between a mother and her child. It is the kind of love that “goes to the wall” for the other by being in service to him or her without burning yourself out, of course. That would hardly be love if I destroyed myself in the process. I think it is a paradox. As I become personal with another for her good, I can and do experience a kind of refreshment.
Enright, Robert D. (2012-07-05). The Forgiving Life (APA Lifetools) (Kindle Locations 1789-1801). American Psychological Association. Kindle Edition.
Dr. Bob
Why Forgive?
Here are some reasons to forgive:
1) so that I will feel better.
2) so that the other person, in seeing mercy in me, might change course and start having mercy.
3) so that the one who offended me and I might reconcile.
4) so that I might be an example for others.
5) so that I can grow in the virtue of forgiving and become a forgiving person.
6) so that I can get proficient enough in this virtue to be able to pass it along to others.
7) just because. Extending goodness is good in and of itself.
Of all of these reasons, #7 shows the intrinsic beauty of forgiveness. All others also are honorable because they recognize the importance of persons and of relationships. Even #1 is a good reason and is not self-serving if I am trying to get better so that I can give goodness to others and not just to the self.
Which of the seven reasons describes you the best?
For more reasons why forgiveness is the right thing to do physically, spiritually and socially, visit the Why Forgive section of this website.
Dr. Bob
Do You Want to Become a Forgiving Person?
Part of being a forgiving person is to know the forgiveness process and to practice it. As you understand that process more and more and become comfortable with it, you will find that this is a good beginning to being a forgiving person. At the same time, practice and feeling comfortable with this practice is not enough to transform yourself into a genuinely forgiving person. You will need to begin to foster a sense of deep connection with forgiveness. As an analogy, people can spend their whole lives working at a job or a profession but not really connect in a deep way with it. “I am someone who goes into nursing homes, does what I am told, and gets a paycheck,” is one way to see oneself. “I am someone who serves the elderly. That is not just what I do. It is a part of who I am.” This thought is much deeper than the first one. Can you begin practicing forgiveness regularly and deeply enough so that it becomes a part of you?
Enright, Robert D. (2012-07-05). The Forgiving Life (APA Lifetools) (Kindle Locations 1534-1542). American Psychological Association. Kindle Edition.
