Our Forgiveness Blog
Lawyers and Forgiveness
The lawyer, Thurman W. Arnold III, is in the business of resolving conflict. He is well aware of the mayhem that conflict causes as he states on this blog: “We live in what seems to be an increasingly mad and insane world. The conflict cycles that resentment spawns are evident, in the extreme, by the headlines of each day’s newspaper.”
What I admire about him is this: In the context of divorce, he would prefer that couples resolve their differences through forgiveness than to separate through divorce. If you think about it, he is losing money by doing that. After all, if all couples reconciled, he would never have any lawyer’s business. If we follow the logic of it, he would be out of a job. And yet, this does not concern him. He would prefer that the truth of marriage be played out in the hearts and minds of the married than that resentments be played out in the courts.
On the website, Laywers.com, there is a fascinating essay defending the use of forgiveness in both civil and criminal issues. In civil matters, private parties are in disagreement. The website poses and answers an important question: “Can you forgive? Of course. Just because you suffered some type of injury or damage doesn’t mean you have to file a lawsuit. In fact, sometimes it may not be a good idea to file one.”
But what about criminal matters, where a love-one was murdered, for example? Does forgiveness have a place here? The writer at Lawyers.com sees a place for forgiveness even here: “For instance, prosecutors can choose whether or not to file criminal charges against someone. They’re not required to bring everyone accused of a crime to trial. This is called prosecutorial discretion. For example, a wife who killed her physically abusive husband technically may have committed manslaughter, but the circumstances of the case may make a prosecutor choose not to charge her with the crime.”
Our own website here shows many instances in which a victim of a crime forgives. See, for example, this story in which a woman forgives a man who killed her mother. In forgiving, she has an opportunity to reduce toxic anger, that may remain regardless of a legal decision because no legal decision is likely to eliminate the inner pain to the degree that forgiveness does.
Our hats are off to these highly principled lawyers, who put the principles of forgiveness and healing above their own self-interests.
R.E.
The Place for Guilt and Injustice
I have been perusing some of the forgiveness blogs on the Internet and there is one theme that comes up often: If we think of the world as having injustice and guilt, this blocks out love in our lives. As soon as we understand that there is no injustice, then we see that there is no guilt. As we see there is no guilt, we do not judge anyone guilty. As we do not judge anyone guilty, we do not judge. As we do not judge, we do not divide the world into the innocent and the guilty. As we do not divide the world this way, we eliminate conflict. As we eliminate conflict we are free to love.
Nope. This is too high a price to pay for inner peace. It is a false peace achieved by hiding under a bed of illusions.
Inner peace is not won through a lack of conflict, but instead by our response to the conflict itself. Inner peace is a steadfast will to love in the face of injustice and guilt and judgement and conflict in this world.
Otherwise, we have a situation as in the movie, The Time Machine. It is the year 802,701. The peaceful Eloi have all the peace they think they want, until the Morlocks choose some of them for slaughter. The Eloi, you see, have shut out of their minds that there is conflict so that they see nothing wrong with some of their brethren being slaughtered. It is the price they pay for a full stomach, to ignore injustice. In this Time Machine world, the Morlocks are not guilty. In this world, there is no judgment. In this world, the innocent are not divided from the guilty. In this world, there is no perceived conflict.
And there’s the rub. There is no perceived conflict when conflict is all around the Eloi. They do not have the courage to see it.
Love requires courage and so in the futuristic new age of the gentle Eloi, they talk of love but even their love is an illusion because ultimately they care little for their fellow man. It is inner peace they seek at all costs, including the abandonment of love while calling all of this love.
The Eloi are now all around us. Sad to say, but so too are the Morlocks. They are at the door even if the gentle Eloi fail to recognize them for who they are. And in the seeing, we can still love, but it will be a love that sets limits and strives for the betterment of all. Such striving involves much pain, which the Eloi have refused as part of their growth in love. As a result, they fail to grow in love.
R.E.
Defendants Asking for Forgiveness: Love or Self-Interest and How Can One Tell?
Each day, I examine the news stories on-line, looking for forgiveness themes. Over the past few months I have been surprised by the number of stories in which a defendant, not yet judged or sentenced, in a court of law asks a victim or the victim’s family members to forgive him.
It has me wondering. To what extent is the request for forgiveness coming from the heart or from a calculating head? And, how can one tell the difference? A psychiatrist, Dr. Hunter, in an early journal article (the late 1970’s) on the psychology of forgiveness said that insincere forgiving has a certain smug-like quality to it. Perhaps the request for forgiveness, when insincere, has a similar quality to it.
But, again, how can one discern that in the context of a courtroom with all of its formality? Perhaps one way to tell is to ask those receiving the request. Do they see sincerity or do they see this as a way to try softening judge or jury for a lighter sentence? At the same time, victims or a victim’s family members, when blinded by anger, may not be able to accurately judge a sincere request for forgiveness, especially when feeling particularly unforgiving.
Should judges and juries take sincere requests to be forgiven seriously, so that the sentence is altered because of this?
It is all quite new to me and so I am asking rather than explaining.
R.E.
The Wisdom of Benjamin Franklin
One of the famous quotations of Benjamin Franklin is this: “The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.”
I have never heard a challenge to the quotation, but I wonder. Surely, his list of offerings to certain people sounds completely reasonable, but I wonder about the exclusivity of it all. Why not give a good example, for example, to an enemy as you give forgiveness? Why not give forgiveness, for example, to your mother or to yourself when standards are broken.
It seems to me that the “best thing” to give anyone is forgiveness when they have been unjust.
Yes, let us give forgiveness to an enemy….and to all others listed when it is appropriate. Let us give charity to all, as the wise Mr. Franklin says, and forgiveness is one aspect of charity, given when others offend.
R.E.
Why Forgive if the Other Is Not Likely to Change?
People sometimes feel discouraged when the other person continues to act unjustly despite your best efforts to forgive. Forgiveness as a virtue is for the good of the other whom you forgive and so if he or she is not receiving your goodness, why continue? An assumption behind the question is that the other will never change because of the forgiveness, but you do not know that. A seed of love planted today could have an effect on the person years from now.
But, you may ask, “I may never see the fruit of my forgiveness.” The answer, with a gentle reminder that forgiveness is for the other person, is this: It does not matter if you are there or not to see the result. The forgiveness task is to be loving. If the other can grow from that love, then you have done something wonderful for him or her. Even if the other refuses your gift, you have given a gift nonetheless. You have given love in a world that too often is devoid of it. You again have done something wonderful because love is an end in and of itself as well as a means to the end of transforming the world through the action of love.
R.E.
