Practicing Forgiveness

We sometimes have trouble understanding the precise nature of forgiveness. I would like to begin by suggesting that forgiveness is not certain things with which we often confuse it. Forgiving does not mean denying our hurt. What on the surface appears to be a forgiving attitude may merely reveal that we have succeeded in suppressing our pain. If we bury our hurt or pretend it isn’t real, we experience no sense of being wronged that would require our forgiveness. Forgiveness is a possibility only when we acknowledge the negative impact of a person’s actions or attitudes on our lives. This holds true whether or not harm was intended by the offender. Until we are honest about our actual feelings, forgiveness has no meaning.
 
It is important to underscore that forgiveness bears no resemblance to resigned martyrdom. A person with a weak sense of self may too easily take on blame for the actions of others. A person who finds a unique sense of identity by appearing pitiable can learn to play the martyr with great effectiveness. In either case, resignation to the role of victim will prevent any genuine process of forgiveness. If we feel we deserve to be blamed, degraded, or abused, again we will have disguised the offense that needs forgiveness, not by denial but by taking inappropriate responsibility for the offense. One spiritual writer has astutely pointed out that forgiveness does not mean “putting the other one on probation.” We may think we have forgiven someone only to catch ourselves waiting impatiently for evidence that the person’s behavior merits our clemency. If the offender doesn’t measure up to our expectations, the “gift” of mercy is withdrawn: “To grant forgiveness at a moment of softening of the heart, in an emotional crisis, is comparatively easy; not to take it back is something that hardly anyone knows how to do.”1 To forgive is not to excuse an unjust behavior. There are evil and destructive behaviors that are inherently inexcusable: fraud, theft, emotional abuse, physical violence, economic exploitation, or any denial of human rights. Who could possibly claim that these are excusable? To excuse such behaviors—at least in the sense of winking and pretending not to notice, or of saying “Oh, that’s all right,” or even “I’ll overlook it this time, just don’t do it again”—is to tolerate and condone them. Evil actions are manifestly not “all right.” They are sins.
 
Finally, to forgive is not necessarily to forget. Perhaps for small indignities that prick our pride we can simply excuse and forget. But for major assaults that leave us gasping with psychic pain, reeling with the sting of rejection, bowing under the weight of oppressive constraint, or aching with personal loss and grief, we will find ourselves unable either to excuse or to forget. Moreover, there are situations in which it is not desirable to forget. It would be but another expression of arrogance for those of us with European roots to ask Native or African Americans, under the guise of forgiveness, to forget the way they and their ancestors have been treated by the cultural majority in this country. I understand why our Jewish friends insist that we never forget the horrors of the Holocaust. There are brutalities against body, mind, and spirit that must not be forgotten if we are to avoid replaying them. Blows intentionally rendered to crush the vulnerable cannot, humanly speaking, be forgotten. They can, nonetheless, be forgiven.
 
If we now have greater clarity concerning what forgiveness is not, what then is it? Let me characterize it this way: To forgive is to make a conscious choice to release the person who has wounded us from the sentence of our judgment, however justified that judgment may be. It represents a choice to leave behind our resentment and desire for retribution, however fair such punishment might seem. It is in this sense that one may speak of “forgetting”; not that the actual wound is ever completely forgotten, but that its power to hold us trapped in continual replay of the event, with all the resentment each remembrance makes fresh, is broken.
 
Moreover, without in any way mitigating the seriousness of the offense, forgiveness involves excusing persons from the punitive consequences they deserve to suffer for their behavior. The behavior remains condemned, but the offender is released from its effects as far as the forgiver is concerned. For the one who releases, such forgiveness is costly both emotionally and spiritually. I believe this reflects in a finite way both the manner in which God forgives us and the costliness of that infinite gift.
 
Forgiveness constitutes a decision to call forth and rebuild that love which is the only authentic ground of any human relationship. Such love forms the sole secure ground of our relationship with God as well. Indeed, it is only because God continually calls forth and rebuilds this love with us that we are capable of doing so with one another. Thus, to forgive is to participate in the mystery of God’s love. Perhaps this is why the old adage rings true: “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” Genuine forgiveness draws us right into the heart of divine life.