Dear Friends, Family, Neighbors, and Those of You I Don’t Yet Know —
Back from Reno, and I’m happy to report that Dad’s surgery went well. He and I had a good time looking at a book of photos of the town as it is now and the town as we remember it. It’s a much different place now than it was when I was growing up there, and an even more different place than it was when Dad was a boy. I wish we lived nearer to each other. American culture makes it hard to keep families together.
This week, as promised, Odd Company will delve further into the tricky business of forgiving. To set the stage, I’ve found a song by Brandi Carlile that has the tone and spirit I’m looking for. Here is “Every Time I Hear That Song,” which is about…well…forgiving. Born in the Pacific Northwest, she’s a favorite of mine for her breadth (pop, country, R&B, folk), but even more for her depth.
Why not start right out with a story? My mother had two sisters and a brother. As far as I know, she was always on civil terms with the brother. But she went for ten years without speaking to one of her sisters, and twenty years without speaking to the other. I never understood quite what set off these silences, beyond the fact that someone said something Mom considered unforgivable. Efforts to let bygones be bygones usually went unanswered. Eventually, Mom lay dying, and her brother and one of the sisters came to say good-bye, but the family gathering was incomplete. Mom called for the sister to whom she hadn’t spoken in two decades. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I don’t even remember how it started. It was such a stupid thing to do.” “It’s all right,” said the sister. “I’m just so glad to be here, and so glad you called.” Imagine all those years of pain on all sides. In the end, no one understood quite how the long silences happened. But everyone understood Mom’s need for forgiveness before she could go. She couldn’t be at peace without it.
The eminent theologian Desmond Tutu begins The Book of Forgiving with a simple and surprising observation. “There is nothing that cannot be forgiven, and there is no one undeserving of forgiveness.” This comes from a man who has seen people do unimaginably horrible things to each other, and who has suffered his personal share of those horrible things, all while dedicating his life to helping those scarred souls heal.
In the September 27th issue, “Fur Balls,” I outlined a sort of overview of forgiveness. I’m tempted to call forgiveness a skill, because it doesn’t seem to come naturally to very many of us. As previously mentioned, our natural response when someone or something injures or threatens us is either to run away (or to freeze, if we’re literally paralyzed with fear) or to match the aggression tit for tat. But neither hiding nor attempting to “get even” soothes our suffering. Both strategies leave us angry, or worse, obsessively chewing at a wound that won’t heal. The suffering is caused, as always, by a type of craving. But in this case, what we crave is a magic wand that will erase whatever wrong has happened and make everything right again. We wish to change the past; to reverse the flow of water under the bridge. But that’s impossible, so the anger and pain continues. Only the act of forgiveness can heal these wounds.
What is forgiveness, exactly? Maybe it’s best to begin by listing some of the things forgiveness is *not*. I say this because people too often think forgiving is something only a weak person would do. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Forgiveness is an act of courage, and is also perhaps the ultimate act of compassion. It takes considerable strength of will. It requires us to stop seeing ourself as a helpless victim and begin to understand our own power. Forgiving *doesn’t* mean underplaying the seriousness of an offense, or forgetting about it, or excusing it. It simply means letting go of our own anger and resentment, and any wish we might have to personally harm someone in order to get even. It is always something we do ourself. It’s not dependent on what the other party does or says. Sometimes we forgive someone else; sometimes we forgive ourself.
What do we get out of it? Judging from personal experience, I’d say the biggest thing we get is a load of rocks off our shoulders and out of our heart. It takes an enormous amount of energy to be seething all the time. Once we’ve forgiven, the pain begins to abate, and we can begin to heal and move beyond what we’ve lost. Because anything we do to heal ourself also helps to heal the world as a whole, we are doing everyone a huge favor when we forgive.
Of course, as is so often the case, all of this is much easier said than done. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. Tutu suggests four steps. First, we must tell the story of what happened. It’s ideal if we can talk or write to the one who hurt us, but often that’s not possible. The important thing is to tell someone what happened. It could be a friend, a family member, the police. It can happen in person, or by a phone call or a letter. We must also understand and accept that we can’t change what happened. It can’t be undone.
The second step is to name the injury. We must come to understand exactly what we’ve lost and how we feel about it. In a way, this is a continuation and elaboration of telling the story.
The third step is to grant forgiveness. In order to take this step, we have to arrive at some understanding of why the other person did what they did. As Tutu points out, there has never been a villain who saw himself as a villain. Compassion for the one who hurt us is one of the goals, but to achieve compassion, we need some sense of the other party’s story, too.
Finally, we can renew or release our relationship with the one we are forgiving.
These are wildly shortened versions of the four steps. I highly recommend The Book of Forgiving, which Desmond Tutu wrote with his daughter Mpho. In its pages, you’ll find a wise guide for healing through forgiveness.
And now, wildly late, I’ll say good-bye till next week. Sorry to say I have no poem again. I’ve had a busy few days, and did a lot of work on my final Capstone Project report for the compassion class. Stay tuned!