"The Complexity of Forgiveness"

Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne
October 5, 2008

Reading: Getting Real, excerpt  by Amy Bloom

To err is human, to forgive divine ... and sometimes it's a big mistake. I n seventh grade, I got beaten up almost every day by a big, mean, redheaded girl with eyes like a prison guard's.  She followed me from class to class, terrorized me during lunch, made me miss my bus, then-for reasons I'll never know-beat the crap out of me.  For years I used to think about her whenever I saw a school bus, but sometime in my 20s I discovered I didn't anymore.  I couldn't even remem­ber her name, even though the mere sound of it had once gripped me like the hand of death.

Then one day when I was pregnant with my first child, I ran into her, and she bought me a cup of coffee and reminisced about those days as if we'd been great pals.  ("Didn't we have fun at the bus stop!" she said.)

Had she forgotten?  Did she think accepting the cof­fee signaled that I'd forgiven her?  She wished me harm and made me suffer, and she never regretted it.  I decided there's no reason to forgive people like that, although there's every selfish reason not to seek them out or to try to gain revenge.  People who devote themselves to addressing every grievance ever accu­mulated are not only exhausted, with not much left for their ongoing life, but, all their bitter musing and tracking down has a corrosive and drying effect on the soul.

On the other hand, since disappoint­ment and misunderstanding are in­evitable, I've become a huge fan of forgiving people who act badly, whether during a divorce, the sale of a house, the death of a parent, unemployment, or just a real bad patch.  Not mealy-mouthed forgiveness ("Sure, no problem," said as I turn away).  Not sulky or reproachful forgiveness.
The real thing.
The same goes for my own apologies.  I was always pretty good about apologiz­ing for the accidental elbow in the ribs, whether actual or emotional, but I've learned that apologizing with feeling and gravitas is important, even if I don’t ever quite understand how I've hurt someone.  That I've hurt them counts; exactly how, not so much.

Sermon: The Complexity of Forgiveness by Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne

Celebrated author Amy Bloom, says “she is beginning to see the light” now that she is in her fifties.   Her life experience has given her some perspective, and she has become a huge fan of forgiving people.  Trained as a social worker, Bloom has practiced psychotherapy and currently teaches Creative Writing at Yale University.  She knows forgiving and being forgiven is important for our well being.  Of course, we probably all know that at some level.  Forgiveness - with all its benefits, who wouldn't want to give and receive forgiveness?  But then, Bloom, the huge fan of forgiving, also said she has decided it’s OK not to forgive some people.  What gives?  Here in this service we have been praising the idea of forgiveness and urging people to forgive each other and themselves, but Bloom says you really don’t have to.  We know it’s not often easy to forgive, but beyond the difficulty sometimes involved in actually forgiving, if we accept her position forgiveness may be more complicated than we thought.
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All the major religions of the world and all the great spiritual teachers have preached forgiveness.  It has universal appeal.  But it is more than just something we have been told we ought to do; forgiveness seems to be ingrained in our nature as human beings.  When we have caused harm to someone, we feel guilt, and when someone has harmed us, we feel hurt or anger.  In both cases a host of powerful emotions can disturb our minds.   These emotions create a natural drive to find relief, to do something to control the mental energy that distracts us and disrupts our peace.  Intense feelings may trigger our basic survival instincts and evoke a protective response where we attack the person who harmed us.  If we have harmed someone we may turn anger on ourselves and spiral downward.  But most of us have figured out that forgiveness, as counter-intuitive as it may seem at times, is a better way to release bottled up emotions.  Coming to a state of forgiveness brings peace.  We could all benefit from learning how to do it more easily.

Rarely does forgiveness come as quickly and automatically as it did after disaster struck in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania in October of 2006.  After ten little girls had been shot in their school, the Amish made forgiveness look simple.  Having to grieve while under the spotlight of national television coverage, they did not cry out in outrage, as I’m sure I would have done.  Instead, they handled their grief in the same manner they go about their lives every other day by praying together in their normal circle of family and friends.  They went inside for strength, and they did it together.

Then, within a day of the shooting they astonished most of us when they went as a group to the home of the man who had killed 5 of their daughters and told his family they forgave him.  They needed no lengthy process of reflection or emotional struggle; they just went and did it.  Apparently, practicing forgiveness is such a core component of Amish religion they have developed the ability to spontaneously act with amazing grace.  They see forgiving others as a response to God’s grace toward them.

Several of the social scientists who study forgiveness questioned the inner quality of their forgiveness because it came so quickly, wondering if they had felt pressured by their religious convictions to offer forgiveness prematurely, before they had adequately processed their grief.  For most of us, after such a huge loss, forgiveness would happen, if it ever did, only after a struggle to come to terms with our pain.  Were the Amish skipping over the work needed to deal with hurt and anger leaving themselves vulnerable to the probability these things would come back later to haunt them?  Maybe, but the Amish admit they are subject to the same struggles as people everywhere and they need constant support from their sisters and brothers in faith.  What allows them to “fast track” forgiveness is their choice of solutions to despair.  Their consolation comes from the daily summoning of strength from their trust in God in spiritual solidarity with their community.   It doesn’t come automatically; it takes daily practice to overcome doubt.  “The path they follow from anger and anguish to forgiveness is more direct than it is for most of us, not easier but simpler.”
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While we may not all be able to pursue forgiveness in the Amish model, theirs is but one example that humans have the capacity through effort to forgive each other.  Judaism codified the practice of forgiveness many centuries ago and offers a common sense approach to those involved in seeking or granting forgiveness.  It asks those who wish to return to right relationship to approach forgiveness considering both justice and mercy.  It insists us there is more to seeking forgiveness than the asking, and reminds us there is no guarantee the process will always carry through to completion.

The Jewish process of forgiveness offers specific guidance to those who wish to be forgiven and to those asked to forgive.  The process of atonement, called Teshuva, must begin with the offender, and only the offended person can pardon the wrong.  A conscience stricken person who wants forgiveness must do four things:
1 – Realize the extent of the damage and feel sincere regret,
2 – Immediately cease any harmful action,
3 – Confess the mistake and ask forgiveness, and
4 – Resolve to refrain from repeating similar acts.

A corollary that results from the propositions of this process is that a victim can wait to grant forgiveness if not enough has been done to restore trust in the relationship.  It is essential for the victim to hold open the possibility for the offender to make amends for the harm he caused.  In addition, the need for further rehabilitation can be true for the victim as well as the offender.  A victim naturally feels anger at their loss, and Jews consider it necessary to accept and understand that anger so healing can take place.  This system is a very reasonable one, and it has been proven to work in millions of cases over the centuries.  Despite its proven efficacy, there are times when the process of atonement has failed.
 
Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel famously contends the Holocaust imposes limits on the Jewish forgiveness teachings.  I’ll excerpt his speech to the German Bundestag, or parliament, on January 27th, 2000, on the occasion of Germany’s inaugurating an annual Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust.  He said:
“I am a witness [to the Holocaust], and I speak to you today with neither bitterness nor hate.  All my adult life I have tried to use language to fight hate, to denounce it, to disarm it, not to spread it… All I wish to do…is to evoke in a few words an unprecedented event that will, for generations to come, continue to weigh on the destiny of my people and yours.  And this event, I still don’t understand it.  I go on trying and trying…How is one to understand the cult of hatred and death that flourished in this country?  How could bright young men, many superbly educated… from fine families…allow themselves to be seduced by Evil to the point of devoting their genius, to the torture and killing  of Jewish men, women and children whom they had never seen?...Were the killers still human?... At what point does humanity end?...
I am here and I remember the victims…and it is to remember them that this Parliament is marking [this day]…and this decision does you honor….your willingness to open the gates of memory and to declare together our conviction and resolution that it is high time for Cain to stop murdering his brother Abel….After the war, some of us expected a defeated and humiliated Germany to deliver a more powerful message of remorse and contrition, one that would be linked to morality; instead, in those years it was related more to politics.  [Since then, you have come a long way.]  But I believe that perhaps the time has come for you to make a gesture that would have worldwide repercussions.  Have you asked the Jewish people to forgive Germany for what the Third Reich did in Germany’s name to so many of us?...Do it and the significance of this day will acquire a higher dimension.”

Wiesel’s assertion that Germany is not yet ready to be forgiven is both widely supported and widely debated.  You can see that coming from the Jewish tradition of forgiveness, Holocaust survivors, and by extension all Jews, could, according to their moral system, justify withholding forgiveness at least until Germany explicitly asked for it.  As we saw with Amy Bloom in our reading, it may take half a lifetime just to get over the abuse, and after that there may be little soul energy left for addressing every grievance.
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Wow – that’s very powerful stuff!  Talking about the Holocaust and school shootings is overwhelming – not easy to do.  These are extreme examples which make certain points stand out and help us pick apart the logic of ethical arguments, but extreme examples can also make it hard for us to relate to the issue of forgiveness as individuals.  Most of us, thank goodness, will never be personally involved in something so horrific.  So, let’s take this down to the personal level.  What is forgiveness for us common folk?

On any given day we feel hurt, slighted or disrespected by someone - that person who cut us off in traffic, the political ad which unfairly attacked our candidate, the family member who we argued with yesterday, who gets under our skin so easily.  It is so easy to build up a store of grievances.  Resentments and hatreds, once established, demand we do something about them.  We can keep them or let them go.

The times when we are able to let them go we usually find emotional relief.  But, in other cases, we hold on to feelings of hurt or anger – sometimes all the way to the grave.  Our instincts help us protect ourselves and press us to demand compensation for the harm others have caused us.  Though contrary to much traditional advice on dealing with grievances, holding on to those feelings can be a good thing.  The motivating energy that comes with anger, if channeled into protecting ourselves and into correcting injustices, can be healthy and constructive.  Victims of oppression and long term abuse tell how the one domain that remained their own was their inner thoughts and feelings.  The vengeful feelings they harbored kept their oppressors from totally dominating them.   So, not forgiving can provide at least a temporary restoration of self-worth and the energy to strike a blow for justice.

According to Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, “Unforgiveness [can be] an authentic stage toward replacement of hate with love.”  She emphasizes that forgiveness is not a should – that you should forgive is not expected of you; it is always an option.  She does not recommend that you stay in a place where you are being eaten alive by anger, because there are ways to leave such places, but she doesn’t judge unforgiveness as morally impermissible.  You can’t make someone forgive; it is always a personal choice.  Forgiveness happens on an unpredictable calendar and often in ways we don’t control or understand.  Sister Prejean says, when it happens, it is an “unfolding of a person in grace, where you reach a certain wholeness.  And it has to do with love, that love will not be overcome.”
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Some of us are too quick to forgive.  Quick forgiveness that doesn’t go very deep leaves feelings of resentment under the surface, and they are likely to return later, maybe even years after the original offense.  We should be careful not to romanticize forgiveness; for it to have its intended effect, it has to be real.  When we experience real forgiveness, we feel it in our gut.

The most worthwhile forgiveness comes when we allow ourselves to grieve our losses and work on forgiving at the same time.  When we struggle with anger, resentment and even hate, and are able to forgive, forgiveness has more substance.  You may have heard of the “stages of grief” that we go through after we have been hurt or have suffered a loss – Sadness, denial, bargaining, anger, and finally acceptance.  Well, what I see happening with most people who are in the midst of grief is not stages, but all of these feelings happening more or less simultaneously.  Grieving a loss is part of the process of forgiveness.  Therefore, it is not unusual for folks who are trying to forgive someone to feel many emotions at the same time.

The process of forgiveness is complex; it is normal to experience a multitude of feelings when searching for forgiveness.  The title of my sermon should have been, “The Complexity of Forgiveness is OK.”  It’s OK to embrace all the feelings and even allow them to be very strong at the same time.  I’m not talking about “balancing our emotions,” either.  We may feel tremendous grief, or hate someone with a passion.  At the same time, we can work to forgive.  Psychotherapist and theologian Thomas Moore, says, “I don’t think it’s a matter of balancing all those things out, it’s being able to hold all of it at the same time.  It’s the bigness of the person that is at stake.”   If you can hold all of those emotions at once, you are ahead of most of us.  It is also normal to fall apart, to struggle, and most importantly to look to others for help.

And that brings us to why forgiveness is so important in the first place.  We all fall short of perfection, especially when trying to deal with life’s most persistent problems.  We are like other people, no better and no worse.  We all hurt other people, and we all need forgiveness.  So, however imperfect our attempts may be, it behooves us to increase our capacity to forgive.  The process is rarely simple and never easy, but working on forgiveness can open our hearts to compassion and love.  Surely, even if we don’t make it all the way to forgiving a particular hurt, turning ourselves into more loving and compassionate people is worth the effort.  Go, and practice forgiveness, and may you find peace.