Tagged: “Dr. Robert Enright”

Checking in Again Regarding Your Unfolding Love Story

In March of 2014, we posted a reflection here in which we encouraged you to grow in love as your legacy of 2014.

The challenge was this: Give love away as your legacy of 2014.

We challenged you again in 2015…..and 2016……and we kept going.

Our challenge to you now is this: Give love away as your legacy of 2019.

One way to start is by looking backward at one incident of 2019 so far. Please think of one incident with one person in which you were loved unconditionally, perhaps even surprised by a partner or a parent or a caring colleague.

Think of your reaction when you felt love coming from the other and you felt love in your heart and the other saw it in your eyes. What was said? How were you affirmed for whom you are, not necessarily for something you did? What was the other’s heart like, and yours?

Can you list some specific, concrete ways in which you have chosen love over indifference? Love over annoyance? If so, what are those specifics and how are they loving? We ask because 2019 will be 50% over as we move through June. Have you engaged in 50% of all the loving responses that you will leave in this world this year?

Tempus fugit. If you have not yet deliberately left love in the world this year, there is time…..and the clock is ticking.

Robert

Despite your response to a question on April 30 in this column, I can cite a variety of cases where the one extending mercy was indeed “higher” than the one receiving that mercy. Can you further explain your contention?

Yes, there are many examples of one person as “higher” than another in mercy, such as a judge reducing a deserved sentence of a person who is convicted of a crime.  Yet, mercy in general is going beyond what is deserved to aid someone who is suffering.  Such aid need not imply, in every case, that the one who is exercising mercy is somehow higher than the other. 

Here is an example: Let us suppose that a judge just got into an auto accident.  The judge is hurt and needs help.  Now, here comes a driver, who is a convicted person on probation.  The convicted person is late for work, under pressure, but nonetheless stops his car to aid the judge.  This is costing the convicted person who now is going beyond fairness (after all, he could simply call 911 and move on) to help the judge, who is supposedly the “higher” person. 

So, mercy is not always a moral virtue in which the “higher” person aids a lower person.  If you think about it, by our use of the word “higher” in these examples, it always involves not some kind of spiritually higher situation, but instead only a social role situation.  If we look beyond social roles, no one is higher than anyone else.  Thus, mercy is the attempt to alleviate the suffering of another, regardless of social role.

Learn more at What is Forgiveness?

It seems to me that mercy and forgiveness are different. In mercy, one person is higher than another and has pity on the one who is hurting. In forgiveness, you level the moral playing field and each are equal in their humanity. Would you please clarify for me?

Actually, forgiveness is a moral virtue that flows from mercy and mercy flows from the moral virtue of love. Yes, you are correct that when a person is showing mercy toward another, the one who is merciful is helping someone in distress. This, however, does not at all make the one who extends mercy somehow higher in humanity than the one who is in pain. They are equal as **persons** even though their **circumstances** differ.

So, to summarize, love in the Greek sense of agape, is to serve others for the others’ sake. In the serving, one may have to endure pain and persevere and actually suffer in such serving. This, in other words, does not put the one who is serving in a higher position. Mercy is a particular form of love in which the one showing mercy tries to alleviate the pain of another, which can cause the mercy-worker to feel pain and experience humility in the serving, thus leveling the moral playing field in that this is one person helping another person. Forgiveness is a special case of mercy in that the forgiver tries to serve the offending person by alleviating his or her pain, misunderstanding, and even moral weakness by helping the one who caused pain and who may be in pain because of the unjust action. In each case of love, mercy, and forgiveness, the moral virtue is one **person** serving another **person or persons** and each is equal in their personhood.

For additional information, see Learning to Forgive Others.

I feel that my friend deserves love and forgiveness, but I do not feel ready to forgive. Have I actually started the forgiveness process if I at least feel in my heart that she deserves my love?

Yes, I do think that you are on the path of forgiveness when you realize that your friend deserves your love. I say that because one of the first steps of forgiveness is to commit to doing no harm to the one who hurt you. When you say that your friend deserves your love, it seems to me that you will not then deliberately do her harm, even if you are not feeling or expressing love just yet toward her. Love is a more advanced form of forgiveness than committing to doing no harm. This is the case because doing no harm is refraining from the negative; love is deliberately instituting the positive toward your friend.

Learn more at 8 Reasons to Forgive.

In your book, Forgiveness Is a Choice, you are critical of relaxation techniques relative to forgiveness. Would you please elaborate on that for me?

Relaxation is important and so I am not criticizing it as a way of reducing tension. My critique comes when mental health professionals use relaxation as the primary way of reducing resentment. Relaxation can reduce tension but it cannot cure resentment, or a persistent ill will toward another person or persons who acted unfairly. Why? It is because once the person is finished with the relaxation exercise, the resentment likely will return. Forgiveness, on the other hand, can directly target the resentment so that empathy and compassion toward the other person grow in the heart, literally reducing or eliminating the resentment.

Learn more at Forgiving is not. . .