Tagged: “forgiveness”
What if there is no justice in place to protect you? Perhaps, it is a problem with justice not forgiveness, but do you still recommend forgiveness even if justice is not available to protect you? Why or why not?
Are you asking this?—What if the boss is obnoxious and you want to leave? The old job with this boss is bad for you and there is no better job on the horizon. Might forgiving the boss keep you in an unhealthy job? I do not think that forgiveness is a weakness here. You can forgive and then perhaps, with reduced anger, ask for a more just situation with the boss. In this case, forgiveness may help you to seek fairness where, right now, justice does not exist. Your trying to **create** a just situation, after you forgive, may be your protection.
For additional information, see The Four Phases of Forgiveness.
Is there a difference between forgiving and wishing someone well? I wish my ex-husband well, but I am still very angry with him because he broke the marriage covenant.
The late Lewis Smedes in his book, Forgive and Forget, made the point that people are starting to forgive when they wish the other person well. Thus, you likely are at the beginning of forgiveness and this is a positive step. Now you need to press onward toward deeper forgiveness. Try to see your ex-husband’s worth; try to see his emotional wounds which might have contributed to the break-up; try to be aware of any compassion that may be growing in you as you do this work. The result, based on our research, likely will be reduced anger.
For additional information, see Learning to Forgive Others.
As a follow-up question, let us suppose that children as young as 10-years-old have learned about forgiveness and want to practice it. How can they go about forgiving a parent if that parent keeps offending?
This will depend on the severity of the injustice. If there is abuse, it would be my hope that this will be discovered by professionals in the child’s school. Such abuse often leads to observable effects in children such as inattention during schoolwork, aggressive acting out in school, poor grades, and anger or depressive mood. The child needs justice along with forgiving. The forgiving in this case likely would begin only after the child is in a safe place. If the injustice is not so severe as to require a solution from outside the home, the child could start forgiving by: a) acknowledging anger. This can be difficult because of loyalty to the parent; and b) seeing the inherent worth in people in general and then applying it to the parent.
Many children are very good at exclaiming: “That’s not fair” and if a child is schooled in the moral virtue of forgiveness, which includes schooling in fair treatment, this kind of proclamation, spoken from a forgiving heart, may aid parents in thinking through their own behavior. This kind of pattern is not easy to solve and so, again, I recommend forgiveness education in schools to equip children with the tools for overcoming disappointments and anger caused by truly unfair treatment against them.
For additional information: Teaching Kids About Forgiveness.
To me, proclaiming, “I forgive you,” is all about power—-power over the other by basically condemning the other. After all, what you are doing in this proclamation of forgiving is to point out the other’s flaws. What do you think?
If your philosophy is based on Machiavelli or post-modernism in which the assumption is that there are no universal truths, then you will be viewing forgiveness through the lens of power. If your philosophy is based on classical realism, such as Aristotle, then you will be viewing forgiveness through a moral virtue lens, with the assumption that genuine forgiving is morally good, done for others in a selfless way. The Machiavellian project, within the study of forgiveness, is dangerous because it could lead a person to falsely abandoning the quest for forgiving and shedding of hatred. After all, if forgiving is abandoned, what is the alternative to expunging hatred?
My point is this: The philosophy with which you begin contemplation on what forgiveness is and its value for you and others has profound implications for how you view this important virtue. So, as Socrates warned us, the unexamined life is not worth living. We need to examine very carefully what are our initial assumptions about forgiveness, including being aware of what philosophical model we are bringing to bear on this reflection, prior to judging forgiving as good or bad.
For additional information, see All You Need is Love.
Can children forgive a parent while they are still young and living with the parent?
In my experience, because forgiveness is so little discussed with children, as least in any deep way, most children actually do not think about forgiveness and they do not know how to go about forgiving. This is one reason why instituting forgiveness education is so vitally important. Again in my experience, children who are treated unjustly in the home do not begin to reflect on this until they are in later adolescence and are in transition from the home. It often is at this time that the nearly-adult children look back and can be filled with deep resentment in need of amelioration. If these nearly-adult children already were fortified with what forgiveness is and how to go about it, this would serve them well.
For additional information, see Kids Are Smarter Than You Think.
