Forgiveness

[doojable]

Ok I want to start a thread that discusse forgiveness. I am starting it with a rather long quote by Philip Yancy's What's so Amazing About Grace"

I want to also make clear that I in no way want to offend those who have been hurt by leaders in TWI. I just want to get a good solid discussion about forgiveness going. I believe that this is a vital element in our healing and moving on. Dooj

Quotes might take more than one post so be patient.... Ok here goes

The scandal of forgiveness confronts anyone who agrees to a moral cease-fire just because someone says,”I’m sorry.” When I feel wronged, I can contrive a hundred reasons against forgiveness, He needs to learn a lesson. I don’t want to encourage irresponsible behavior. I’ll let her stew for a while; it will do her good. She needs to learn that actions have consequences. I was the wronged party – it’s not up to me to make the first move. How can I forgive if he’s not even sorry? I marshal my arguments until something happens to wear down my resistance. When I finally soften to the point of granting forgiveness, it seems a capitulation, a leap from hard logic to mushy sentiment. Why do I ever make such a leap? I have already mentioned one facto that motivates me as a Christian: I am commanded to, as the child of a father who forgives. But Christians have no monopoly on forgiveness. Why do any of us, Christian or unbeliever alike, choose this unnatural act? I can identify at least three pragmatic reasons, and the more I ponder these reasons for forgiveness, the more I recognize in them a logic that seems not only “hard” but foundational.” (page 96 – italics as per author)

“First, forgiveness alone can halt the cycle of blame and pain, breaking the chain of ungrace. In the New Testament the most common Greek word for forgiveness means, literally, to hurl away, to free yourself.

I readily admit that forgiveness is unfair. Hinduism, with its doctrine of karma, provides a far more satisfying sense of fairness. Hindu scholars have calculated with mathematical precision how long it may take for one person’s justice to work itself out: for punishment to balance out all my wrongs in this life and future lives, 6,800,000 incarnations should suffice.”

“The word resentment expresses what happens if the cycle goes uninterrupted. It means, literally, “to feel again”; resentment clings to the past, relives it over and over, picks each fresh scab so that the wound never heals. This pattern doubtless began with the very first couple on earth. ”Think of all the squabbles Adam and Eve must have had in the course of their years,” wrote Martin Luther. “Eve would say, ’You ate the apple,’ and Adam would retort, ’You gave it to me.’” Pp 96,97

“Forgiveness offers a way out. It does not settle all questions of blame and fairness – often it pointedly evades those questions – but it does allow a relationship to start over, to begin anew. In that way, said Solzhenitsyn,we differ form all animals. Not our capacity to think, but our capacity to repent and to forgive makes us different. Only humans can perform that most unnatural act, which transcends the relentless law of nature.

If we do not transcend nature, we remain bound to the people we cannot forgive, held in their vise grip. This Principle applies even when one party is wholly innocent and the other wholly to blame, for the innocent party will bear the wound until he or she can find a way to release it – and forgiveness is the only way. Oscar Hijuelos wrote a poignant novel, Mr. Ives Christmas, about a man who is throttled by bitterness until somehow he finds it within himself to forgive the Latino criminal who murdered his son. Although Ives himself did nothing wrong, for decades the murder has kept him an emotional prisoner.”

“Not to forgive imprisons me in the past and locks out all potential for change. I thus yield to another, my enemy, and doom myself to suffer the consequences of the wrong. I once heard an immigrant rabbi make and astonishing statement. “Before coming to America, I had to forgive Adolf Hitler,” he said. “I did not want to bring Hitler inside me to my new country.”

We forgive not merely to fulfill some higher law of morality; we do it for ourselves. As Lewis Smedes points out, “The first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness…”

When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.”

For the biblical Joseph, who had borne a well-deserved grudge against his brothers, forgiveness spilled out in the form of tear and groans. These, like childbirth’s were harbingers of liberation, and through them Joseph gained at last his freedom. He named his son Manasseh, “one who causes to be forgotten.”

The only thing harder than forgiveness is the alternative.” Pages 98-100

Ok, now does anyone have any comments? dooj

Edited January 2, 2006 by doojable

[WordWolf]

This is a tricky subject to cover WELL here....

[sirguessalot]

i think that when forgiveness is longer considered a miracle, to us

but rather, becomes something we simply practice doing, also

(though it may seem like one, when it rarely happens)

we are finally pushing that old god-button on our selves

the central note on the flute

we could call it our capacity to forgive

then...add this to the autonomy brought on by rational thinking

and finally have what the scriptures were talking about in mythic ways

which is agape...surrendering love...the most reasonable ends of the outcome

the widest embrace

which is more of a post-rational stage or state of being

and NOT the old old mythic brotherhoods most religious people interpret it to be

even today in our modern world

reminds me of the stories

when the kid freaked everyone out by simply openly forgiving someone as if he has realized that it has always been his inherent ability to do it

this was obviously so radically new

it was more like a terrifying mork from ork alien invasion

than a holy messiah

though the kids and ladies and elderly catch on quickly

regardless of reason

they already know what the kid was talking about

Edited January 3, 2006 by sirguessalot

[sirguessalot]

for example...

as we learn more and more about cause and effect

we no longer blame the magical puppet sock rock spirit

but shift our blame to whatever we think causes the mineral kingdom

greater awareness of cause and effect allows us to continue to shift the blame

and "forgiveness" itself becomes more of an unfolding affair of nested realities

i would even call it a path, of sorts...or general way, direction, or motion

like engaging a flywheel

Edited January 3, 2006 by sirguessalot

[excathedra]

"When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us."

i don't believe that for a second

[sirguessalot]

"When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us."

i don't believe that for a second

neither would i, as it sits

i would even go as far as to say that it is only half (or less) true

(which is still saying quite a lot)

Edited January 3, 2006 by sirguessalot

[doojable]

I will add that in another part of the book Yancy says that forgiveness does NOT require that one forget the wrong. On the contrary, he says that in order to forgive the wrong must be remembered.

Now, I'm not saying that this is all right just its in a book. It just seems to make sense to me. It has informed my day to day actions and allows me to conduct myself in a way that I feel is more Christian. I know that I didn't post any scripture.

I have had many Christians tell me that I had to forgive or else find myself bound to that person. Why would I want to be bound to a person who wronged me?

I read the writings of Corrie Ten Boom - and I see such grace in how she treated a German officer that she met later on - even tho she wanted to hate him.

Actually, the book is about grace and makes a good case that Christians, a groupthat shold be known for their grace, are often the most legalistic, judgemental group on the planet. And yet they/we wonder why people can hate them/us so.

This is not a TWI issue alone. Christians as a whole have to deal with this. TWI is not the only "church" (i use the term loosely here) that has to deal with child molestation, or sexual predators, or murderers. TWI is the group we have in common - but this is a bigger issue. I certainly don't have all the answers - in fact I have more questions than answers...

[ckeer]

Doojable- Let me recommend a book to you to balance and put in perspective the one you are quoting from. PEOPLE of THE LIE: The Hope for Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck.

“First, forgiveness alone can halt the cycle of blame and pain, breaking the chain of ungrace. In the New Testament the most common Greek word for forgiveness means, literally, to hurl away, to free yourself.”

I think this only partly true. It is based on the assumption that he person being forgiven recognizes they have done something that requires forgiveness, repented, decided to change and at least begun to act. With out this the “cycle of blame and pain” cannot end because the person that needs to be forgiven hasn’t changed and will repeat their pattern because they do not think they are wrong or the cause of the problem . They KNOW it is the person who is supposed to forgive them. When confronted with that situation the only response that will work is to actively do what the greek word for forgiveness means literally to hurl away, to free yourself. That is the only action that will begin to break the cycle.

“Forgiveness offers a way out. It does not settle all questions of blame and fairness – often it pointedly evades those questions – but it does allow a relationship to start over, to begin anew. In that way, said Solzhenitsyn, we differ form all animals. Not our capacity to think, but our capacity to repent and to forgive makes us different. Only humans can perform that most unnatural act, which transcends the relentless law of nature.”

Forgiveness is a product of judgment. Yes the Bible says judge not lest ye be judged. The implication here is that you ARE judging your self first and based on that seeing the need for forgiveness of another. If that person cannot judge themselves, (one characteristic of the truly evil personalities) they cannot recognize there own faults and thus temper their own judgments of others. With these types of people forgiving them will not allow a relationship to begin anew only for the past to repeat itself.

I’ll end with a quote from People of the Lie. Contrasting Good and evil personalities. Not to derail but to illustrate those who cannot be forgiven because they can never understand the need to be forgiven themselves.

“If one ever has the good fortune to meet a living saint, one will have met someone absolutely unique. Though their visions maybe remarkably similar, the personhood of saints is remarkably different. This is because they have become utterly themselves. God creates each soul differently, so that when all the mud is finally cleared away, His light will shine through it in a beautiful, colorful, totally new pattern…

At the other end of the human spectrum from the saints lie the least free, the evil. All one can see of them is the mud. And it all looks the same. …. Once you’ve seen one evil person, you’ve essentially seen them all”

[doojable]

Ok Ckeer, I see your point. However I am not trying to instigate a healing relationship between people. Certainly God has provided a way for the one that is harmed to free him or herself from the anger and guilt and shame of waiting for another to ask for forgiveness.

Isn't it possible for an injured party to forgive another w/o the other person asking for forgiveness? Sure, it won't benefit the person who is supposed to repent - but it will still give the injured party a way out. GOD"S forgiveness will depend on on the repentance of the person who has done the wrong. Now the burden shifts away from two people and instead now the offender has to deal with God. I know it does anyway, but let me illustrate it with a personal story. ( But i'll make it very short.)

I have mentioned on another thread that a leader tried to get physical with me. Because I believed that I should not tell anyone else until I confronted that leader personally, I waited until I felt able to go through what I expected to be a "he said -she said " scenario. ( I was working on the verse that if a brother offends you you should go to that brother alone first.) Once confronted I was poo-pooed and told I was: 1. Misinterpreting things and 2. it simply didn't happen. I didn't let it go but no admission or request for forgiveness was made.

Later that year I became aware of this leader's sexual exploits with many others in the area. He told lies about me and made me out to be immature to all my friends. In the end they avoided me because he convinced them that I wanted nothing to do with them.

It took me years - but I eventually chose to forgive this person. He has never repented. I don't care. The way I figure it he still has to deal with the Almighty and He's a much more formidable force to deal with. I still don't trust this person. I find it hard to believe that I ever will. I also know that I willnever see this person again - there is no future friendship on the horizon. At this point forgiveness only benefits me. I haven't called him and told him I have forgiven him - I just simply let it go.

BTW, this person was classic at exploiting the fact that he knew that I would do the "right thing." He put me in positions like that over and over again for years. he would screw something up and I would cover because I felt that ultimately I was serving God - not him. (And no - I never covered his a$$ in matters that were unGodly.) I'm not unaware of this trick. I also know that God sees all. In the end - this man has his reward. Besides, even if he called me and asked for forgiveness I would doubt his motives - it is much easier to make this something between God and me( my forgiving) - then God and him(his repentance.) This cycle we talk about - don't we have to keep God in the equation?

Edited January 3, 2006 by doojable

[laleo]

I have a friend, a casual friend, with whom I get together from time to time. I got to know her a few years ago when she asked me to edit a book of (awful, though heartfelt) poetry she was self-publishing as a fund-raiser. She's a parish nurse at a local church.

One day, about twenty years ago, she woke up in a cold sweat with a high fever -- a flu she couldn't shake. She went to the doctor, who prescribed antibiotics, and in a week, she hoped she would recover. Instead, she began experiencing curious symptoms, mostly involving pain in her joints. She went back to the doctor, and after many tests, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and that began twenty years of many medications (none worked), tests, surgeries (more than twenty), and pain, terrible pain, which she has never been entirely free of.

During her illness, she began concentrating on her spirituality, figuring if she couldn't find a cure, at least she might find peace in her suffering. She is often a guest speaker at spirituality workshops, and routinely counsels people who are experiencing chronic illness. I phoned her once, a few years ago, when I was having a mini-crisis of my own, when my anxiety levels were beginning to skyrocket, and we got together. When I told her all of my problems, she looked me dead in the eye and asked, "Why are you holding onto this?"

What was I holding onto? I knew the answer. My pain. Psychic, for sure, but pain nonetheless. I looked at her, a little surprised, then laughed when I realized how correct she was. Why was I holding onto the things that were making me miserable? I didn't know or care what the answer was, but I knew it was time to let go. So I did. Not in ten minutes, but over the course of the next weeks and months. I didn't look for any big resolutions to all that was vexing me. Instead, I looked for little sources of happiness, and tried to increase those.

Anyway, a few months ago, my friend and I went out to lunch. She has a new doctor now, a specialist who will treat her condition far more aggressively than what her previous doctor had been doing for twenty years, now that she knows what her condition is. She's in the end stages of lyme disease, having been misdiagnosed and mistreated for two decades. "Why aren't you angry?" I asked her. She told me she didn't have time for anger. She was putting all of her energy into her new medical regime, grateful for as much of a cure as can be offered her at this point, even as she is beginning to experience the first stages of heart failure. Meanwhile, I was thinking of lawsuits, and retribution, and justice -- all those things that so many here feel are so important to the healing process. She sees it differently. For her, forgiveness doesn't mean passivity; it means she is free to actively pursue her own healing without being weighed down with regret. "Maybe later I'll be angry," she told me. "Right now I just want to be well."

Resentment keeps us in relationship with the people who hurt us. Forgiving someone who is in the process of hurting us is self-destructive, for sure. It seems to me that, first, it would be wise to get some distance from the source of the pain. But once the source is removed, holding onto that resentment, now that the danger has passed, seems even more self-destructive. Maybe the resentment is part of a cycle, where the memory of pain becomes the source of the pain, and around and around it goes.

doojable, I enjoyed your post. I read a book a few years ago -- recommended on a thread at GreaseSpot, come to think of it -- called The Forgiving Self. That author's approach is more secular, but it sounds like some of the conclusions are the same.

[excathedra]

hi laleo what a great post

**

one thing i've often wondered is why some think that lack of forgiveness equals holding onto anger or resentment. are they synonymous ?

[sirguessalot]

really nice thread we're weaving here

it appears to me

if one can even find a reason to start practicing forgiveness

alongside everything else we already do (like remember and learn and whatnot)

life can become an unravelling of many many knots in many many directions

which is not an easy path for the timid or proud in what might even seem a new environment

kinda reminds me of how, in many traditional lines

such spirituallity is the final medicine for our ultimate suffering

where birth and death were once deeply sacred and richly celebrated things

and the recognition all the many deaths and breakings we face in life

because we will always have this dying aspect of ourselves

that neither flat science nor flat religion can provide answers for

what caused this?

what caused that?

who is responsible?

the arts of "dying before you die"

are not always the fairy tale they appear to be

we must first also deal with our own deep rich subtler sense of self made of dreams and memories and thoughts and feeling...

though they may seem like most religions to most sciences

and seem like most sciences to most religions

they are in fact, neither

and both

plus

forgiveness is good word for what may be the most simple and direct path

that has been called a gazillion other things

agape is the best phrase for it from the bible times, imo

the unlocked door

another half of the story

Edited January 4, 2006 by sirguessalot

[excathedra]

yeah i was thinking

it could be symantics or defining terms

like, if someone said to you:

do you harbor resentment ?

do you hate them ?

can't you move on ?

you could answer those questions

no i don't harbor resentment

no i don't hate them

yes i can move on

but it doesn't mean "i forgive"

sometimes i think the term, "i understand" is appropriate

[sirguessalot]

sometimes i think the term, "i understand" is appropriate

yeah

big time

more clarity, more info = more forgiveness, in a sense

Edited January 4, 2006 by sirguessalot

[excathedra]

i think i should clarify where i'm coming from as a child abuse survivor

there are many therapists and christians who will tell you, believe me, that you cannot heal or move on without forgiving

this can be very damaging

i want to quote something from a beautiful human being, an attorney, who has spent the last 30 years devoting his practice to abused children

My position on "forgiveness" is that the last step in true recovery is renunciation of the Perpetrator's Holy Mantra, that pernicious cliché which commands: "If you ever hope to truly heal, first you must forgive!" That living lie has derailed more victims from the path to salvation than all the lies of their tortured childhood combined. For the abused child (of whatever age), forgiveness of the abuser is a choice, *never* an obligation. Because when it comes to abuse of human beings, the "rights" always belong to the *wronged.*

i hope this helps in explaining where i'm coming from and how important this has been to me personally

[laleo]

Speaking only for myself, excathedra, not for you, because I know you have your own pathway to find, which will be different from mine, but if anyone gave me the advice you just quoted, I'd run fast and far. I would seriously question his own motives, and wonder what stake he had in my dysfunction. Again, that's just me. But I wouldn't follow that advice.

I hope you seriously consider what that person is saying to you. If you decide it works for you, fine. But it makes me shudder.

Edited to fix gender.

Edited January 4, 2006 by laleo

[excathedra]

thanks, laleo

[Cynic]

I haven’t experienced anything close to the damage that some folks around here have received at the hands of others.

I did have to cross my own (comparatively small) bridge of forgiveness, however, after TWI. I found this very short piece, which was included in the book Tramp for the Lord, self-silencing.

http://www.hopeway.org/gospel/learnforgive.asp

[doojable]

You make a good point Ex. I guess we all have to deal with what our individual definition of forgiveness is. For me it used to mean saying in my soul, "That's all right. No problem." in that case - NO! forgiveness is not in order - nothing they did was right when it came to sexual abuses and marriage break-ups etc.

On the other hand, I feel like forgiveness is saying, "You're God's problem now. I'm not going to worry about it or re hash it for even another second, I'm done! Go and live your life."

Edited January 4, 2006 by doojable

[sirguessalot]

i hope this helps in explaining where i'm coming from and how important this has been to me personally

i think i can see it, e

because forgiveness deals with real and complex arrangement of real things that really happened

...things regarding self, regarding god, regarding others, regarding circumstances...

and to rush or otherwise hurry someone through any aspect of this

points towards the living lie mentioned in your quote, imo

forgiveness it is not false humility

or condoning abuse

or spiritual by-pass

or some mantra-like a baby binky to put us to sleep

it is a process

and really deals with real things that really happened

and are really still happening, in a very real sense

[markomalley]

You make a good point Ex. I guess we all have to deal with what our individual definition of forgiveness is. For me it used to mean saying in my soul, "That's all right. No problem." in that case - NO! forgiveness is not in order - nothing they did was right when it came to sexual abuses and marriage break-ups etc.

On the other hand, I feel like forgiveness is saying, "You're God's problem now. I'm not going to worry about it or re hash it for even another second, I'm done! Go and live your life."

Since this is in the doctrinal forum, maybe it would be appropriate to look at this from a doctrinal point of view.

In the Lord's prayer (as elsewhere), the Greek word rendered as forgive is apheimi. The meaning of apheimi is to let go, to send away, to release. It's most commonly rendered as "leave" in the New Testament.

Anyway, any of us can do the word study on that word and so I won't bother here. The point is that when it's properly defined, we understand that the meaning is "send out trespasses away even as we send away those who trespass against us..." -- that changes A LOT!

Just something to consider in this thread discussing forgiveness in the doctrinal forum...

[CM]

Forgiveness can be a letting go of

holding yourself accountable to exact revenge

revenge will happen, without the one offended

no doubt

[doojable]

Mark,

Thanks for the input. I put this in the doctrinal category because I felt that it would be moved there anyway. Afterall, the "Once and For All..." thread was moved here.....

Anyway, I am surprised that this is all we have to say on the matter.

[markomalley]

Mark,

Thanks for the input. I put this in the doctrinal category because I felt that it would be moved there anyway. Afterall, the "Once and For All..." thread was moved here.....

Anyway, I am surprised that this is all we have to say on the matter.

Well, it's a tough subject for a lot of people around here who have been hurt in one way or another by TWI and/or its minions. There have been knock-down drag outs on that very subject more than once around here.

There are some who have been victims who believe that the challenge to forgive is a direct demand to turn about and embrace their abusers, making themselves again vulnerable to further abuse. They have a fully deserved defense mechanism built up in their lives so as to prevent being abused again in the future. There are others who are apologists for the abusers who use this defense mechanism as a mechanism to attack the victims for a lack of Christian charity. Unfortunately the high emotions and polarization make any discussion rather difficult.

Myself, when I see the subjet rear its head, I've learned to pray for both the victims and the abusers: that the victims can someday find peace in their hearts to the point of being healed and that the abusers can someday feel contrition to the point of true repentance. I don't know if either wish will ever be made manifest, but I figure the prayers don't hurt even if I never see any results.

[doojable]

Thanks Mark,

I figured that there would be some resistance. I'm not of the mindset that to forgive is to allow the wrongdoer access to my life. Once trust is lost it has to be rebuilt - that is a separate issue. In fact Yancy addresses this issue - I'll have to find the quote. He actually says that it can be dangerous to embrace the abuser specifically because it can set the cycle in motion again.

I don't see any point in being an apologist for an accuser - each person is responsible for his or her own actions - if I was taught to do some things that were wrong I'd still be responsible to repent either once I learned it once wrong - OR if I found that my actions hurt someone. I don't know how many times I have asked forgiveness simply because while I was doing what I believed to be the right thing I inadvertenly hurt another's feelings.

I know ther are verses that tell us not to live in the past - that certainly doesn't mean that we are not to learn from the past.

Thanks for your input.