2021-12-21 - The Art of Forgiving by Lewis Smedes ================================================= Introduction ============ But whatever the mind can make of the future, it cannot silence a syllable of the past. There is no delete key for reality. [Only for our evaluation of it.] The only way to remove the [pain] is with a surgical procedure called forgiveness. It is not as the forgiving were the remedy of choice among other options, less effective but still useful. It is the only remedy. Forgiving, when you come down to it, is an art, a practical art, maybe the most neglected of all the healing arts. It is the art of healing inner wounds inflicted by other people's wrongs. To do healing well, we need to know: * What makes it work, * Why we do it, * What to forgive and what not to forgive, * How to know when the time is ripe, * Whether to resume a relationship again after forgiveness, * Whether to tell the person we forgive that we've done it, * How to know whether we have actually done it, and, above all, * How to do it right. We also need to clear up some false notions about forgiving. [Such as the notion that] if we forgive someone for doing us wrong we are exempting [them] from the demands of justice. Chapter 1, The Three Stages =========================== [Not Larry, Curly, and Mo.] When we forgive someone, we all perform the same basic transformation inside our inner selves. This is why, for all of us, mo matter how badly we have been hurt or when or why it happened, the remedy has one name: forgiveness. No two situations are exactly the same. And no two people feel exactly the same way after they have been wronged. Each of us naturally puts [our] special spin on the inner process of forgiving the wrong. And each of us makes [our] own decision about how to relate to someone after we forgive [them]. Still, the fundamentals are the same for everybody. We all pass through three stages of forgiving. * We rediscover the humanity of the person who hurt us. * We surrender our right to get even. * We revise our feelings toward the person we forgive. I have heard that 80 percent of what we see lies behind our eyes. If this is so, 80 percent of what we see when we look at a person who recently wronged and deeply wounded us must lie behind our eyes in the memory of our pain. As we start on the miracle of forgiveness, we begin to see our enemy through a clearer lens... We begin to see a real person... We see a bubble held aloft by the blowing of a divine breath. We see a human being... Forgiving our enemy does not turn [them] into a close friend... We do not diminish the wrongness of what [they] did to us. We do not blind ourselves to the reality that [they are] perfectly capable of doing it again. But we take [them] back into our private world as a person who shares our faulty humanity... human like us. After we have been wronged--and wounded in the bargain--... no human right seems more sacred than the right to get even... What is the difference between [vengeance and justice]? Vengeance is personal satisfaction. Justice is moral accounting. Forgiving surrenders the right to vengeance, it never surrenders the claims of justice. We never bring closure to vengeance. In the exchange of pain the accounts are never balanced. Vengeance by its nature cannot bring resolution. And when you get down to it, most of our getting even happens only in our private fantasies. ... our opponent feels no pain when we attack [them] in our dreams. But meanwhile, our fantasies become a catheter dripping spiritual poison into our systems. Surrendering our right to get even is the surrender of a very bad pain in the neck. Once we have rediscovered our offender's humanity and given up our right to enjoy getting even, we begin to feel new feelings toward [them] personally. We feel [the offender] differently after we see [the offender] differently. I have discovered that most people who tell me that they cannot forgive a person who wronged them are handicapped by a mistaken understanding of what forgiving is. They would have been helped a lot had they gotten a clear picture of the process at the start. Chapter 2, The Sorts of Things We Forgive ========================================= Forgiving is a remedy for just one kind of pain. Four general rules about what to forgive and what not to forgive: * Forgive persons, not institutions. * Forgive persons for WHAT THEY DO, not for what they are. * Forgive persons for what they do to SERIOUSLY WOUND US. * Forgive persons for what they do TO WRONG US when they wound us. The problem with forgiving corporations is that they are legal fictions. They do not exist in any flesh-and-blood sense. [The problem with forgiving people for what they are is that] most people are too complex and too murky for us to be sure of what we would be forgiving them for. Forgiving is difficult enough. ... better to narrow things down to something specific. [Forgiving is] for the inner pain and boiling resentment brought by the deepest cuts that we cannot ignore when they happen and cannot forget after they have been sliced. But if your friend betrays your trust, the pain you feel is wrongful because you did not have it coming and because it is morally wrong to betray a friend. We all know that the only bonding agent that holds a personal relationship together is trust. A relationship held together only by a contract is not a personal relationship. A community held together only by force is never a human community. Only trust holds personal relationships together. Trust is both the beauty and the fragility of being human. Our need for trusting relationships is inborn, bred in the bone, part of the human design. To break trust is thus to assault the law of life. It is not only harmful, it is a deep moral wrong. Forgiving is not meant for every pain people cause us. Forgiving is for the wounds that stab at our souls, for wrongs that we cannot put up with ever, from anyone. Chapter 3, Forgiving Does Not Mean Reunion ========================================== There are three reasons why the popular notion that forgiving and reunion always go together is a major misconception: * Forgiving happens inside the person who does it. * Forgiving is not about reunion. * Forgiving does not obligate us to go back. Forgiving happens, as we have seen, inside our minds and hearts. When we do forgive, we rediscover the frail, failed, bruised humanity of the person we forgive and we give up our fantasy of revenge. We treat the bounder as a fellow human being and wish [them] well. All this can happen without giving the matter of restoring the relationship more than a second thought. I believe, however, that when a person close to us wrongs us, [they throw] up two obstacles between us. One of the obstacles is our sense of having been violated, which produces our anger, our hostility, [and] our resentment. This is the obstacle that our forgiveness removes. But only the person who wronged us can remove the other obstacle. And [they] can remove it only by repentance and, if need by, by restitution. * It takes one person to forgive. * It takes two to be reunited. * Forgiving happens inside the wounded person. * Reunion happens in a relationship between people. * We can forgive a person who never says [they are] sorry. * We cannot be truly reunited unless [they are] honestly sorry. * We can forgive even if we do not trust the person... * Reunion can happen only if we can trust the person... * Forgiving has no strings attached. * Reunion has strings attached. Let us be clear that forgiving and reunion are not the same things; a person can truly forgive and refuse to be reunited. Three reasons why forgiving does not obligate us to go back: * Reunion is sometimes impossible. * Reunion is sometimes harmful. * Reunion may be such a threat that it prevents a wounded person from forgiving. Forgiving happens regardless of circumstances; for a reunion, the circumstances have to be right. Being forgiven does not qualify a person to be a friend or a partner. And if [they do not] qualify, we are better off to walk away and heal ourselves alone. Chapter 4, Forgiving Does Not Mean Restoring ============================================ [People] sometimes get confused about the difference between forgiving someone and restoring that person to the place [they] held before... Chapter 5, Who Can Do It? ========================= To qualify for forgiving we need only to meet three requirements: * We need to bear the wounds ourselves. * We need to know we have been wounded. * We need to have an inner push to forgive. Forgiving is about healing wounds. So only people who bear the pain qualify for forgiving the person who inflicted it. Everyone else should step aside. The worst wounds I ever felt were the ones people gave to my children. Wrong my kids, you wrong me. And my hurt qualifies me to forgive you. But only for the pain you caused me when you wounded them. My children alone are qualified to forgive you for what you did to them. Discerning people have an eye for moral differences. When someone hurts them accidentally, they accept it as one of the risks of living around clumsy people. But when they realize it was no accident, that the person who hurt them knew what he [or she] was up to, they know that they were not only wounded, they were wronged besides. This is the kind of moral discernment that qualifies a person for forgiving. We may FEEL wronged when in fact we are only wounded. None of us forgives with 20/20 vision. And it is probably better to forgive too much than to forgive too little. But few of us are naturals at this game. We don't seem to be born with the forgiveness gift. We need to work at it... Forgiving has to come from inside as a desire of the heart. WANTING TO is the steam that pushes the forgiving engine. Where does the desire to forgive come from? I believe that every ordinary human desire to redeem the past comes from God, the source of all redeeming graces. So one way to get the desire is to be in touch with God. Chapter 6, The Case Against Forgiving ===================================== The moral objection to forgiving rises from our moral instinct for fairness. Forgiving is wrong, some argue, because it is DISHONEST. In the name of a cruel kindness, it denies reality. Finally, some critics say forgiving is wrong because it CONTRADICTS HUMAN NATURE. But I also hoped I would have had the faith to invite him [the repentant but seemingly irredeemable Nazi brute] to join me in asking God to forgive him. Why bring in God? ... when he murdered the children... he "murdered" God with them. The difference is that God can survive his [or her] own murder and live to forgive the person who cut his [or her] throat. I did not then and still do not know what I would have done if Karl had shot my own children as they tried to leap from a burning house. ... who can know for sure? Chapter 7, In Defense of Forgiving ================================== Forgiving offers the best hope of creating a new fairness out of past unfairness. Forgiving cannot happen without severe truthfulness. Forgiving follows the impulses of our true and better natures. * Forgiving someone who did us wrong does not mean that we tolerate the wrong [they] did. * Forgiving does not mean that we want to forget what happened. * Forgiving does not mean that we excuse the person who did it. * Forgiving does not mean that we take the edge off the evil of what was done to us. * Forgiving does not mean that we surrender our right to justice. * Forgiving does not mean that we invite someone who hurt us to hurt us again. [What about turning the other cheek?] Almost every argument against forgiving assumes that forgiving means what in fact it does not mean. The heart of my answer to the complaint against forgiving is that forgiving is the only way to get ourselves free from the trap of persistent and unfair pain. Far from being unfair, it is the only way for a victim to be fair to himself or herself. Far from being a dishonest denial of reality, forgiving is not even possible unless we own the painful truth of what happened to us. Far from being alien to our human nature, forgiving dances to the melody of our true humanity. Chapter 8, Because It Suits Us ============================== On the other hand, some things are just not meant to be done simply because it is our duty to do them. Some things are meant to be done only because we want to do them. Some can be done for no other reason. If we are not led to do them by our own inner impulses, they don't get done at all. Or at least they will not get done well. Forgiving is one of those things. How do we explain this tension between doing what we ought to do and what we want to do? I think we will resolve this tension when we recall that there are actually THREE KINDS OF "OUGHT." First, there is an ought of OBLIGATION. But nobody forgives out of obedience to authority... Second, there is an ought we should follow because we will be better off for doing it. Call it an ought of OPPORTUNITY. Third, there is an ought that comes from being the kinds of people [that] we are. Call it an ought of FIT. We ought to forgive the way a spouse ought to make love, a sad person ought to cry, a happy person ought to smile, a lyrical person ought to sing, and a grateful person ought to say "thank you." We ought to do it because it suits us so well. We forgive when we discover that we really want to forgive, and we want to forgive when we want to heal ourselves from the hangover of a wounded past. And when we actually do forgive, we are only doing what comes naturally to anyone who has felt the breath of forgiving love on her [or his] own heart. Chapter 9, For Our Own Sake =========================== I think forgiving works on both sides of the street. It is a reciprocity. We do ourselves good only when we wish good for the other. And we do the other person good only after we have healed ourselves. Forgiving has to be both ego-centered and other-centered. Otherwise it cannot work. Serious pain is always ego-centric. [I agree. Otherwise, who feels the pain?] Check out the best-known scream of pain in history--Jesus calling from the cross: "My God, My God, why have you abandoned ME?" We need to get on top of our pain before we can get ourselves to do some good to the person who caused it. Forgiving has to heal our pain before it can heal anybody else's pain. When we forgive someone who did us bad, sooner or later we desire good things for the person who did it. This means that we can do ourselves good only by wanting good things for the person who did bad things to us. Forgiving, like loving, gives us no choice between being self-centered and other-centered. If I love someone only for my sake, my love becomes sick, uncreative, [and] manipulative. If I love someone only for his or her sake, my love becomes fawning charity, [and] demeaning pity. It is the same way with forgiving. We simply have no choice between self-centered forgiving and other-centered forgiving. I can do you good by forgiving you only if I do myself good by forgiving you. It is life's most [virtuous] circle. When we forgive we become our own good physician, and the remedy we use percolates from the warm, breathing heart of the universe. Chapter 11, Forgiving People Who Do Not Say They Are Sorry ========================================================== Forgiving under any circumstance is only for people who don't deserve it. Being sorry for the wrong we did does not earn us a right to be forgiven. How would it? There is no such thing as a right to be forgiven. Forgiving flows always and only from what theologians call grace--unearned, undeserving favor. Grace that is earned is not grace at all. In an odd way, if we deserved to be forgiven, we would not need to be. And yet, when we realize that forgiving is the only remedy for the pain the offender left us with, the only way to heal the hurt [they] caused, we have an incentive to forgive no matter if [their] heart is hard as flint. In short, forgiving unrepentant people is a no-lose opportunity--difficult to do but with a harvest of healing. Yes, we must be fair to ourselves. But are we fair to ourselves when we prolong a bitterness that is shriveling our spirits? Are we fair to ourselves if we let our abuser or betrayer or deceiver decide for us when we may be healed...? When we forgive someone who is not sorry for what [they have] done, we do not forget, and we do not intend to let it happen again. The person who hurt us should not be the person who decides whether or when we should recover from the pain [they] brought us. We cannot EXPECT to be forgiven without sorrow for the wrong we did. Repentance does not earn the right to forgiveness; it only prepares us to receive the gift. Chapter 12, Forgiving Ourselves =============================== Forgiving ourselves is a tough nut to crack. Which is probably a good thing. If forgiving ourselves was easy, chances are, we are only excusing ourselves, ducking blame, and not really forgiving ourselves at all. We need to forgive ourselves because the part of us that gets blamed feels split off from the part that does the blaming. We are exiled from our own selves, which is no way to live. We are ripped apart inside, and forgiving ourselves is the only way we heal the split. We must pay for the license to forgive ourselves. We pay in the currency of remorse. The first thing we need to know when we try to forgive ourselves is what is it that we are forgiving ourselves for. * What we did, not who we are. * Specific things we did. * Wrongful things that we deserve blame for doing. The feeling of being forgiven and the feeling of forgiving ourselves are so much alike that there is no point in trying to keep them distinct. Say it out loud. Say it straight into the eyes of the reflection you see in a mirror. You may feel like a clown. But do it anyway. If you dare to say it, you have already begun to do it. Forgiving is seldom done once and for all. It almost always needs repeating. So say it a hundred times if you need to, say it until the meaning begins to filter through your brain into your soul. If you want to feel like a person who has forgiven herself [or himself], do the sorts of impulsive things that forgiven people might be inclined to do. Do anything nice that the practical part of you will tell you is nutty. Celebrate the miracle you are performing on yourself by creating a little miracle for somebody else. Chapter 15, Owning Our Pain =========================== Forgiving is a remedy for pain... just our own. But no pain is really our pain until we own it. Ownership is a personal relationship. We own something when we take personal responsibility for it. How do we do [that]? We take five basic steps. * We APPROPRIATE it. ... We make something a property of ourselves. * We ACKNOWLEDGE it. We don't conceal it. * We NAME it so that anybody can know what it is. * We EVALUATE it. [We get a sense of its meaning], decide how important it is to our lives, and what it would take for somebody to get us to part with it. * We [ASSUME] RESPONSIBILITY for it. [We generally] hold ourselves answerable for what happens to it while we own it. I learned that the more I disowned my feelings, the more they owned me in hidden and subtle ways I did not recognize. We alone can answer the question our pain asks: "Now that you are stuck with me, what are you going to do with me?" Before we answer, we can review our options. We begin to take responsibility for our pain when we listen to its question. We begin to heal our pain when we give the right answer. Chapter 16, Taking Our Time =========================== But for serious wounds, we need to take our time. People who have been wronged badly and wounded deeply should give themselves time and space before they forgive. My advice? Follow these five steps before you even begin to forgive. * THINK -- Take time to focus on what actually happened. * EVALUATE -- [Was it intentional? A pattern? How bad is the wrong?] * TALK -- Consult a friend or counselor. * FEEL -- Take time to be alone with yourself [without distractions] so that you can be in touch with what you feel and put a name on what it is... * PRAY -- [Be honest with the divine.] Admit you need help, ask for it, and use it when it comes. There is one more reason for waiting before we forgive. The situation may not be ripe for it. If we wait too long to forgive, our rage [and resentment] settles in and claims squatters rights to our souls. There is a right moment to forgive. We cannot predict it in advance; we can only get ourselves ready for when it arrives. Chapter 17, We Don't Have To Say So =================================== There are two good reasons why silent forgiving is sometimes better than spoken forgiving. * Not all of us have a gift for telling people that we forgive them. * The people we forgive are not always ready to hear us. Spoken forgiving, no matter how heartfelt, works best when we do not demand the response we want. ... we must leave them free to respond however they are inclined. If the response is not what we hoped for, we can go home and enjoy our own healing in private. Chapter 18, We Don't Have To Put Up With It =========================================== Forgiving intolerable things does not make them tolerable. It is precisely because they are intolerable that such a radical remedy such as forgiving had to be found for them. Assumptions about forgiving and tolerance: * Some things are intolerable in and of themselves no matter how mane people put up with them. * Intolerable things are forgivable. * Forgiving an intolerable wrong does not make it tolerable. * Forgiving an intolerable thing does not mean we intend to put up with it. Chapter 19, How Often? As Often As We Need To ============================================== * Forgiving is not an obligation. [It is an opportunity to do ourselves some good.] * Forgiving is not about letting people get away with something. * Forgiving is not about staying with people who are hurting us. We certainly need to set limits. But not on forgiving. It is abuse we need to set limits on. Forgiving is a gift, not a duty. It is meant to heal, not to obligate. Use the fit as often as it takes to set you free from a miserable past you cannot shake. Chapter 20, When We Are Not Sure We Have Done It ================================================ Recall that forgiving does not usually happen [all] at once. It is a process, sometimes a long one, especially when it comes to wounds gouged deep. And we must expect some lapses, the way long-term investors expect some downs in the market. When it happens, stay the course. And look at the downside as an opportunity to reinvest, do it again, [and] get back in practice. Your anger is a clear sign that you are in touch with reality. If you still get angry after you forgive, let your anger protect you from being a sucker for similar wounds in the future. Forgiving is not anti-anger, anymore than love is anti-anger. The enemy of forgiving is hate, not anger. Anger is aimed at what persons do. Hate is aimed at persons. Anger is the positive power that pushes us toward justice. Hate is the negative force that pushes us toward vengeance. The best source of help can be found in a group of fellow strugglers. There are plenty of them about because not many people get far in life without having been wounded unfairly. Chapter 21, Forgive and Remember ================================ Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We changed the memory of our past into a hope for our future. The answer to the problem of imagining a future we cannot control is hope. A few ways to do this: * We remember the good parts of the bad past. * We remember the past with truth. When we forgive, we get new courage to recall what happened even though it wounded us badly... We also dare to recall our own responsibility for what happened to us, if we have any. * We remember with a new respect for ourselves. * We remember with sadness. * We remember without illusions. author: Smedes, Lewis B. detail: LOC: BV4647.F55 tags: book,non-fiction,self-help,spirit title: The Art of Forgiving Tags ==== book non-fiction self-help spirit