Tagged: “forgiveness”
“Is it harder to forgive if a person is filled with anger compared with another person who is filled with pain and sorrow after being treated unfairly?”
It seems to me that if the anger is very intense and includes resentment or even hatred, then, yes, it is harder to forgive. Some people who are fuming with anger cannot even use the word “forgiveness” because it intensifies the anger. At the same time, if a person has deep sorrow, sometimes there is an accompanying lack of energy and the person needs some time to mourn first. At such times, the person needs to be gentle with the self as emotional healing takes place.
I forgave and the one who offended me laughed. Now I am offended. Any advice?
Yes, the advice is this: When you forgive a person, ask yourself if it is best to let the person know by saying, “I have forgiven you” or whether it is best to show forgiveness in other ways such as a smile or attending to the person’s spoken ideas. The other person, in your case, was not ready to hear the words. I recommend patience and forgiving even for the laughter. Then, try to show forgiveness without using the words “I forgive you.”
Forgive and forget: Do these really fit together?
I have come to realize that when we forgive, we do not develop a kind of moral amnesia. Instead, we remember in new ways, without the deep pain we experienced at first. We tend to remember the hurtful experiences of our life (such as a broken bone when the adult-person was a child, for example). When we remember injustices in new ways, this helps us avoid being treated badly again in the same way by the same person.
In my country, people adhere to the idea of filial piety or honoring the parents no matter what. I am worried that if I forgive one of my parents, then I am no longer showing filial piety. What do you think?
When we forgive, we are saying that certain behaviors are unjust. We separate the person, as possessing inherent worth in spite of that behavior, and the actions, which are considered wrong. So, you can honor your parent as parent, as person, and still make the correct judgement that sometimes even our parents can act inappropriately. In other words, you can forgive and maintain filial piety at the same time.
May I ask one more question about the definition of what forgiveness is? I am wondering if offering respect for the other is as strong as offering what you call agape love to that person.
Respect toward someone who has hurt you is very honorable, even courageous. Yet, offering love is a higher virtue. Why? It is because agape love includes service to the other for the other’ sake (to help the person to change the unacceptable behavior). One can show respect for another from a distance, without this challenging quality of assisting the other in moral growth.
