Our Forgiveness Blog
The Family Forgiveness Gathering
In our most recent blog post, we began to discuss “the family as forgiving community.” We suggested then, and will now address, a theme we call the family forgiveness gathering as one way to achieve the goals of the family as forgiving community.
In the family forgiveness gathering, the parents are encouraged to create a time and place for family discussions. We recommend that the parents gather the family together at least once a week to have a quiet discussion about forgiveness. They should keep in mind that to forgive is not the same as excusing or forgetting or even reconciling and that forgiveness works hand-in-hand with justice.
Examples of questions for the family forgiveness meeting might include:
What does it mean to forgive someone?
Who was particularly kind and loving to you this week?
What did that feel like?
When the person was really loving toward you, what were your thoughts about the person?
When the person was really loving, how did you behave toward that person?
Was anyone particularly unfair or mean to you this week?
What did it feel like when you were treated in a mean way?
What were your thoughts?
How did you behave at first?
Did you try to forgive the person for being unfair to you?
What does forgiveness feel like?
What are your thoughts when you forgive?
What are your thoughts specifically toward the one who acted unfairly to you when you forgive him or her?
How did you behave toward the person once you forgave?
If you have not yet forgiven, what is a first step in forgiving him or her? (Make a decision to be kind, commit to forgiving, begin in a small way to see that the person is in fact a person of worth.)
What struggles do you have with forgiving someone who behaved in an unkind way to you?
In other words, what is difficult about forgiving?
What is easy about forgiving for you?
The parents are reminded that they do not have to know all the answers. What do you think? Is 15 minutes once a week worth the effort to strengthen your children for the hurts to come, including those which might come many years from now?
Dr. Bob
The Family as Forgiving Community
The central points of the Family as Forgiving Community are these:
1. We are interested in the growth of appreciation and practice in the forgiveness virtue not only within each individual but also within the family unit itself.
2. For family members to grow in the appreciation and practice of forgiveness, that virtue must be established as a positive norm in the family unit. This necessitates that the parents value the virtue, talk positively about it, and demonstrate it through forgiving and asking for forgiveness on a regular basis within the family.
3. For each member of the family unit to grow in the appreciation and practice of forgiveness, that virtue must be taught in the home, with materials that are age-appropriate and interesting for the children and the parents.
4. Parents will need to persevere in the appreciation, practice, and education of forgiveness if the children are to develop the strength of passing the virtue of forgiveness onto their own families when they are adults.
To achieve these goals, one strategy is the Family Forgiveness Gathering, which we will describe next time.
Dr. Bob
Inherent Worth
Inherent worth: the true thought that all persons have a built-in, never-needs-to-be-earned, quality of tremendous value. All people. Even those who are unjust to us. Even ourselves when we are feeling low.
I think that no war (or major conflict in home or neighborhood or community) could ever start if those with the ammunition to inflict harm saw the inherent worth of those on the other side. But, unfortunately, in our imperfect world, and in societies that do not cultivate a deliberate sense of inherent worth of all, cruelties can be perpetrated, even in the name of fairness or “my rights.” The philosopher Blaise Pascal said that if he could prescribe one thing for the human race it would silence—so that we could listen to what is truly important. I think if I were asked that question, I would stay with silence and try to sneak in a second “thing”: the deep understanding that each person, even those who are cruel to us, have immense inherent worth.
Dr. Bob
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
