Today, I am going to write about something that none of us can claim to excel at. That's right, darlings, I am writing today about forgiveness. Bite off that one and chew it for a while! ah, Forgiveness! The gift that goes on giving. Well, it does. But to forgive we must have love for those by whom we are injured, and in order to love them we first have to forgive. And we are not necessarily going to even want to love them. Vicious circle, anyone? I have come to think of forgiveness as a choice. We are not necessarily going to feel anything like love for the offender. Neither are we going to get anywhere close to forgiveness while we continue to nurture our grudges.
And nurture them we do. Like a particularly ugly baby at the breast. By the same token, no one has the right to tell anyone else to forgive, and especially not the offender. Some injuries leave such an impact, such wounds and such scars, that no amount of forgiveness is going to heal a bloody thing. But something is still going to be restored in the life and soul of the one who forgives. But sometimes the damage is such that...Well, I don't know.
I have carried a lot of grudges in my time. I am still struggling to divest myself of a few incumbent resentments. I think one thing that helps is getting a sense of the humanity, and the vulnerability of the offender. That can take a long time, because when we have been hurt, often we are going to view the offender as a monster. Nothing but a monster, nothing even remotely human. Especially when the offender refuses to acknowledge, or express remorse.
I no longer waste my time or energy on people like that. It is better to walk away and to allow them to simply whither away in the shadow realm where they belong. Not exactly forgiveness, but not holding or carrying resentment either. Even that is a hard place to get to.
I still like the idea of forgiveness, even if I am so poor at it. I think because it is also liberating for me, but I also make a clear distinction: The person who has caused the injury, yes, I will forgive. The injury itself, well, that is another story.
When I left the Anglican Church last May, it was with a sense of liberation. I find it interesting that as disgusted as I am with the archbishop and her minions who helped facilitate my passive-aggressive excommunication from their precious brood of vipers, I really don't hate any of those people. I can't say I'm exactly fond of them, either. Would I cross to the other side of the street if I ran across any of them in public? No. I would say hi, and watch and smile while they themselves beat it across the street.
Was I hurt by those people. Well, yes. Critically injured? No. For me it's been a liberation from a toxic church denomination and nothing else. Do I sometimes fantasize about getting even? Yes. And I always get over it. Sort of.
But I think that I have come into a particular advantage that I haven't enjoyed in the past. I simply believe that I am worth better than their treatment of me. And that I merit having better people in my life. That fI merit being in other people's lives a better person than any of them were for me. And I have better people in my life. And God has so filled my heart with joy and the desire to love that really, these small insults are nothing but...they are small insults. Yes, they can accumulate, and often they do accumulate, but now I have the opportunity to free myself.
I am also rather disgusted with one of my supervisors at one of the sites where I work. And finally, now that I no longer have to depend on this person's good will in order to keep body and soul together (I have enough in assets to stay afloat if my job goes sideways between now and when I retire in March), I can finally quit. I am going to talk to him and his boss, then, we will agree on my date of departure and Bob's your uncle.
Others have left injuries that have taken years to heal, and they are still healing. I think what makes a difference now is that I no longer feel obsessed with having to forgive, which can be every bit as damaging as obsessing over the injury itself. But when we are in the middle of the hurt, nothing else is going to exist for us, and our whole struggle is to somehow put it behind and heal. This is not easy, often one of the hardest things we will ever have to do in our lives. And for this, we need help from others.
I think what is helping me to forgive those who have hurt me is in the help and support I am offering others as they are also bowed down by anger and resentment, often very legitimate anger and resentment. Instead of providing me a cue for indulging in my own, helping others through their issues somehow is enabling me to get through some of my own.
I am not there yet. I'm not sure if I'll ever be. Perhaps because forgiveness is more a journey or a process than a destination or a goal. And as we process our way through the hurt and the pain we are going to learn more about ourselves, and thus we are going to grow. And that is what empowers us to move forward in love and to move forward in forgiveness.
Hard work, yes. But that's the way it is, Gentle Reader, that's the way it is!
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