Forgiving when there has been no apology...

Later this week, I hope to look at a couple of things that I think are extremely helpful in forgiving a person who has apologized and asked for forgiveness. I also want to look at a couple of tips that are helpful in asking for forgiveness. But, for today, I want to think for a little bit about what seems to me to actually be the much more common experience... What to do with the pain, when there has been no apology?

So far I have contended that it is absolutely essential if we are going to progress in forgiveness at all, that we have a clear vision of the benefits to us of forgiveness. I think the cliché is absolutely true: forgiveness is setting someone free and discovering that the person you set free is you. To forgive a person who has made no apology, we are absolutely going to have to be clear that forgiveness is worth it - for us. Second, it will most likely be a process. Even if we are extremely clear in our vision of the benefits of forgiveness, there is a strong likelihood that we will progress in forgiving a person, it won't be a we decide to forgive and we are done with it once and for all. Maybe it will work that way for you every time. You just decide to forgive and then your have. I pray that it does. I just know that it doesn't often work that way for me. I go into forgiveness expecting it to require effort - and sustained effort at that. Third, forgiveness, (and this is perhaps particularly true when it comes to forgiving a person who has not asked for forgiveness), means admitting to myself that I was hurt. I am vulnerable, and I was hurt.

I think forgiveness flows much more easily in a loving community where people readily ask forgiveness and I am longing for such a community, but, again that is not my subject for today. I'm look at about forgiving the people who have hurt me, but not asked for forgiveness. A central part of the prayer Jesus gave us is: "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us." It would seem that forgiveness must also entail forgiving those who haven't and may never ask for forgiveness. And if giving forgiveness truly is good for my soul then I do not want to wait around for someone to apologize before I forgive. That is a little like waiting for the perfect time for anything in life - starting to exercise, learn a language, ask someone on a date, get married, move, have kids, plant a new community - the perfect time so rarely comes - that we will end up spending a whole bunch of our time waiting. So, I am advocating for myself beginning the work as soon as we realize that we have been hurt - and not waiting around for an apology that may never come.

First a caveat on forgiving a person who hasn't asked to be forgiven. What I am explicitly not advocating here is remaining in an abusive relationship. That is not forgiveness. I'm also not advocating a sort of cheap throw away "We even need to forgive our abusers..." If forgiveness is a journey - I see very little wisdom in attempting to begin the journey at the most difficult of places. Related to this, forgiveness, or better I should say the concept of forgiveness, can in abusive authoritarian systems become a bludgeon that reinjures victims of the authoritarian system. "Mistakes were made, sins were committed. The Bible says you need to forgive and your unforgiveness and unwillingness to let this go is sinful." Authoritarian systems can turn the concept of forgiveness into a tool of the system. Here is a more in depth description of how an abusive system can abuse their most vulnerable members through the concept of forgiveness. If you are in a system that uses forgiveness to shield the powers that be from abuse of their power - get out.  And, in time work on forgiving the people from a distance - and, I would say eventually fight the system - but, seriously, right now get out of the system.

Ok, end of caveat, which does flow into something that I have found quite helpful in forgiving when there has bee no apology.  Forgiveness from a distance is possible, and often wise. Forgiveness does not necessarily entail becoming best buds with the person we are forgiving. The ideal in forgiveness is if the person was our best bud, is that after forgiveness they will also be our best bud. But, not everybody will be our best bud, and it simply may not be possible to have a restored relationship with everyone - I think that is the vision of the future - but, it may not be the target of the present. Forgiveness from a distance is possible - and at times I am convinced that the distance empowers the forgiveness. Here's  couple of ways that I think this works. One the distance, the gives space and time for the wound to heal. We rest and protect our physical wounds - I think there is some real wisdom in doing the same with our soul wounds. Second, the distance can cultivate some space our souls to surface who we need to work on forgiving. If we are not in regular contact with a person. Yet they are occupying large units of our mental energy, and showing up at regular inervals in our dreams - then that is probably a pretty good sign that we are being invited into the healing journey of forgiving that person.

I'll end it here for today, and take at least one more post on forgiving someone who has not asked for forgiveness.. For today these are my summarizing thoughts some distance may be our friend. Forgiveness from a distance is not only possible - sometimes it is the wise and necessary.

Surprising goodness...

I came across this story in Robert Sapolsky's Why Zebra's don't get Ulcers. It struck me as a wonderfully charming story of what I am hoping that we are hoping will happen for all people. The book in general is a fun read about the effects of stress on our mental and physical health. In this particular section of the book he is talking about type A personalities (and actually turns out that one of the people he references of the agnostic and the atheist in the story is the cardiologist who discovered the type A personality and it's links to cardiovascular disease - Dr. Meyer Friedman). In the midst of laying out the correlation between type-A behavior and heart disease, he tells this story which is followed by his wonderfully personal and surprising little footnote:

"A pleasing thing is that Type A-ness is not forever. If you reduce the hostility component in Type-A people through therapy (using some of the approaches that will be outlined in the final chapter), you reduce the risk for further heart disease. This is great news. I've noticed that many health professionals who treat Type-A people are mostly trying to reform these folks. Basically, many Type-A people are abusive pains in the keister to lots of folks around them. When you talk to some of the Type-A experts, there is an odd tone between the lines that Type A-ness (of which many of them are admittedly perfect examples) is a kind of ethical failing, and that the term is a fancied-up medical way of describing people who just aren't nice to others. Added to this is a tendency I've noticed for a lot of the Type-A experts to be lay preachers, or descendants of clergy. That religious linkage will even sneak in the back door. I once talked with two leaders in the field, one an atheist and the other agnostic, and when they tried to give me a sense of how they try to get through to Type-A subjects about their bad ways, they made use of a religious sermon.* I finally asked these two M.D.s an obvious question—were they in the business of blood vessels or souls? Was the work that they do about heart disease or about ethics? And without a beat they both chose ethics. Heart disease was just a wedge for getting at the bigger issues. I thought this was wonderful. If it takes turning our coronary vessels into our ledgers of sin and reducing circulating lipids as an act of redemption in order to get people to be more decent to each other, more power to them.

* I listened to a tape of this sermon, called "Back in the Box," by the Reverend John Ort-berg. It concerns an incident from his youth. His grandmother, saintly, kind, nurturant, also happened to be a viciously competitive and skillful Monopoly player, and his summer visits to her were littered with his defeats at the game. He described one year where he practiced like mad, honed his Machiavellian instinct, developed a ruthless jugular-gripping style, and finally mopped up the board with her. After which, his grandmother rose and calmly put the pieces away.
"You know," she said offhandedly, "this is a great game, but when it is all over with, the pieces just go back in the box." Amass your property, your hotels . . . [the sermon takes off from there] . . . your wealth, your accomplishments, your awards, your whatevers, and eventually it will all be over with and those pieces go back in the box. And all you are left with is how you lived your life.
I listened to this tape while racing to beat red lights on my way to a 5:00 A.M. commuter train, Powerbook ready so as not to miss a moment of work on the train, eating breakfast one-handed while driving, using the time to listen to this sermon on tape as research for this chapter. And this sermon, whose trajectory was obvious from the first sentence and was filled with Jesus and other things I do not subscribe to, reduced me to tears."

I found myself a little verklempt as I read. I loved the whole (especially his footnote), but was also particularly grabbed by his talk of ethics - though I might not use that word. The thing he seems to be getting at is that living better in the way we treat other humans actually makes our own lives better. Or conversely, treating other people shittily is bad for others and for us.

Forgiveness means saying that something wrong or painful happened... and, sigh, this means we are vulnerable

In the first post on forgiveness I looked first at it being actually good for us, forgiveness is about setting someone free and discovering that the person is you. In the second post I looked at the reality that forgiveness is a process and is likely to take time, perhaps not always, but often enough to suspect that it is going to take a little time. That is why it is so important to have a clear vision of the benefits of forgiveness on the front-end, because, it could take awhile and it may in fact be fairly difficult.

If we have  a vision firmly in place and are clear that it will be a process, then we are in the best position to proceed with the work of forgiveness. In order for forgiveness to actually be forgiveness, there has to have been some actual harm, pain, or loss that has been in some part been caused by another person. This may seem obvious, but it is worth leaning into for a little bit. I, at least, face a real temptation to deny that something hurt, or to minimize the actual pain - "it was no big deal." Sometimes, perhaps often, it might not actually have been that big of deal. But, there are the other times, when it absolutely was a big deal - it hurt and it hurt quite a bit. Now there is a possibility, that I might want to say, "no big deal" for the sake of the person who hurt me, (more on that below), but more often than not, I would guess that in saying "no big deal," I am exercising a type of denial. I think at root that this denial is rooted in fear. The realization that something really hurt quite a bit, means that I am absolutely vulnerable to pain. I'm vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life, and I am particularly vulnerable to the actions of my fellow humans. I don't want to over psychologize myself, or anyone else, but I think on some level admitting any pain, insult, vulnerability means a recognition that I am vulnerable to that ultimate insult - death. (Check out the brilliant book Slavery to Death, by Richard Beck). So, to admit that something hurt, means admitting my vulnerability to pain, and all that comes with vulnerability. That is why it is so courageous. Courage has nothing to do with being invulnerable. Courage is all about being vulnerable, but moving ahead. This is why forgiveness is an act of courage. We admit that we were vulnerable, and that we were hurt. In admitting that we were hurt, we bring the real possibility into the present that we will be hurt again. This act of courage is absolutely crucial to forgiveness, because if we are actually talking about something that was "no big deal" -  well, then it was "not a big deal" - and only a real asshole reacts strongly to something that was no big deal. Forgiveness is of course not necessary for something that caused no harm - that was "no big deal." So forgiveness is not saying "No big deal." "No big deal," probably is the appropriate response in all sorts of situations - but it is not forgiveness. Forgiveness means saying/admitting, even if it is only to ourselves, "man that hurt!"

Now there are times, when saying, "yes that really hurt," to another human, might be really painful for them. We need to be wise. Sometimes as noted above, we might want to say, "no big deal," as a way of sparing them pain. Sometimes this might be the appropriate response. But, what I have in mind here is the situation when someone is actually asking for your forgiveness. They feel that their actions have caused you pain and they are before you asking for your forgiveness. There may be an occasion when, it would be a kindness to say no big deal, but this should be very much the exception. In general, I think it would be wise to (as I heard Stanly Hauweras say eloquently) "tell the truth." So if it actually was no big deal - just tell the truth. But, again, I think the primary motivation in saying, "no big deal," is an exercise in denial as an attempt to protect ourselves from the truth about our own vulnerability to pain. Secondly, I would guess that the temptation to sy "no big deal," is somewhat motivated by a fear that if we admit that something hurt it might damage the relationship. Well, the reality is that the relationship is already hurt. We're hurt. Now, another person is standing before us saying, "I'm sorry I caused you pain," That's a pretty vulnerable act on their part. It seems like this is about as safe a setting as we are going to get for admitting "Yeah that really hurt." I would say this is generally the wisest and most courageous response. Because, what does "No big deal," communicate to the other person? I think whether or not this was our intention it can easily communicate, "you have very little impact on me - I'm pretty invulnerable. And you measily human that you are - do not really effect me - and well our friendship/relationship, just doesn't mean that much to me." Of course we are not saying all that, but really in a way aren't we?

Forgiveness is entering into our vulnerability and being honest about the impact another person has had on us. It is admitting our vulnerability from other humans.

I'm not sure if we can forgive institutions - or if we even should make that a goal

I'm going to keep plugging away at forgiveness. Today, though I am taking a bit of a sidetrack to think about anger at institutions. And whether it is possible to forgive institutions, and beyond that if we can - should we?

I heard a speaker once say that whenever he hears someone say "I'm so angry at: ...GM,.... the church, ....the government....etc," that he would always say, "No you're not, your angry at a person." On one level I get what he is saying. There will often be, for me, a face that represents an institution if, I feel angry or frustrated with an institution. But, on a different level, I think he is way off. It seems to me that I at times do feel actual anger toward institutions, a company or school etc... It is certainly fair to ask whether or not the anger is helpful, but that is not what interests me here. Here I am simply after what seems to me to be a fact that I actually do experience real frustration towards what at times seem to be absolutely faceless, and heartless organizations/institutions. I have no problem labeling the level that frustration reaches at times as anger. It seems to me that institutions do cause real harm, and I am convinced (see institutions as emergent entities), that institutions have a life of their own - so I would say it is only natural that we be angry at them.

So, I would argue that we can in fact get angry at institutions. I would also say that our anger at institutions can actually fuel, prophetic kingdom movements. I think Dr. King was angry at the institution of Jim Crow - the instituting of the motto separate but equal. It strikes me that Jesus was angry at the institution of the Sabbath, and the institution of the Temple. (Again if the Sabbath, or the Temple are mere abstractions, or simply given facts about the world it makes little sense to be angry, that would be like being angry that a day on earth is around 24 hours, or that in the Northern Hemisphere or days during winter are shorter than our nights). Jeremiah, talked about his desire to not speak against the institutions of the monarchy and the priesthood, but that the word he didn't want to speak became like fire in his bones.

For today, I will end with this. It seems to me anger at institutions can be fuel for an actual kingdom fire, and we have to be willing to let the fire be kindled by the Holy Spirit.

Forgiveness may take time...Perhaps I should say almost certainly will take time

Yesterday, I wrote about a couple of true clichés regarding forgiveness... that unforgiveness is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die,  and forgiveness is about setting someone free and discovering that the person you set free is you.

Today, I want to think for a moment about forgiveness as a process. By process, I mean that it will occur over time. That likely there will be a beginning to the process, some middle ground with some setbacks, of one step forward and one step back, and it would seem to me probably an end. There are a couple of implications of forgiveness being  process. The first is that viewing forgiveness as process will give us some grace for ourselves as we work on forgiveness realizing that forgiveness for us will very often be a work in progress.

Viewing forgiveness as a work in progress gives me grace for the work. If, however, I am living with a view that forgiveness should just be something I do once and it is done for good and for all time, than I am likely to feel, (especially if I do not feel particularly forgiving), that I have not done any forgiving at all, or I may simply tell myself that I am not good at forgiving and stop the work all together, or I can mistakenly think that having said the words (either aloud or in my mind) "I forgive ..." that the work is done. Sometimes it may in fact be done, if the offense was fairly slight and the relationship in general is warm, and characterized by forgiveness - it may very well be done. But, my guess would be that more often than not there is still much work to do. In these cases simply saying I forgive, and thinking that we actually have forgiven is a little bit like, saying, "I'm going to learn Spanish," and mistaking saying this for actually learning Spanish.

So a couple of first steps on the healing journey to forgiveness. First I must absolutely view extending forgiveness as a gift to my soul and an invitation to a full happy and joyful life. If I do not have this vision firmly in place, I am very unlikely to progress in extending forgiveness, because extending forgiveness can be arduous work. I am unlikely to take up this work unless I have a vision of how my life will be better as a forgiving person. Second, having a vision in place, of the benefits of extending forgiveness I will be helped, by recognizing that it will be work. It is likely that my brain is somewhat addicted to patterns of ruminating on the wrongs that have been done. It seems likely that forgiveness is going to involve forming some new neural pathways. This can be done, but it looks like our brains can be lazy and would prefer to keep running on the same circuits. It wil be work like learning a language, exercising, eating healthy...again this is where the vision of forgiveness as a good for me is crucial.

Forgiveness is often a process. We enter the process best by having a vision of better life through extending forgiveness. We are helped in making progress along the way by remembering that forgiveness is a process - it is work - and like all meaningful work - it is worth it.

On setting someone free and discoverying that someone is you...

For close to two millennia we followers of Jesus have prayed that our Father in Heaven would forgive our debts/trespasses/sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

Forgiveness can be viewed as something which we ought to do/should do/are obligated to do - and perhaps rightly so. But, more and more and I am hoping to see all that Jesus commands as things I desire, because I desire, life and every good thing. I'm beginning to desire forgiveness because I simply desire life - and life to the full. First, I do desire forgiveness of my debts/sins/trespasses. I don't find any life or wisdom in being weighed down by my sins. Daily praying the prayer Jesus gave us is a way to remind myself of my daily need for forgiveness and to daily feel the weight lifted.

Then the prayer reminds me that I need to extend forgiveness. In fact forgiveness follows the request for daily bread. In some very real and meaningful way forgiveness is every bit as necessary as daily bread. And, I think that the way the prayer flows both elements of forgiveness are absolutely as necessary as daily bread - both the forgiveness I receive and the forgiveness - I need to forgive. Expecting to receive forgiveness, but never extending forgiveness is absolutely as unhealthy as expecting or attempting to eat bread and then expecting that bread to never ever go anywhere else (I think friends we call this anal retentiveness - and well it is not all that good for us).  Forgiveness flows to us, and then if we are to be healthy and cultivate room in our soul, it flows from us.

I am helped by viewing unforgiveness as a toxin. Unforgiveness poisons my soul and poisons the soil of my relationships with others. And here is the thing - I do not think that poison only effects the relationships where I am aware there is unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is a habit forming type of toxin. It provides a certain false energy, that can propel me forward for a moment, but in the end leaves me drained, yet addicted to that false energy, and that false energy can easily spill into different relationships - I can begin to use in new situations!

So there is a cliché that is often used when speaking of forgiveness  and unforgiveness.... Unforgiveness is liking taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It can be a clichéd throwaway line in a sermon - but like the clichéd sayings of the twelve step programs if taken to heart- will facilitate a process of transformation. I think this one is especially true - holding on to unforgiveness absolutely will poison my own soul - (I suspect that it also has a toxic effect on my body).

The other cliché that I love regarding forgiveness is: Forgiveness is setting someone free and discovering that the person you freed was you. Again easy enough to turn into sermonic white noise, but if taken in the depths of my soul - wow what a powerful anti-toxin.

So, I'm looking to be the truly free person Jesus says that I can be, and am looking to set people free - and am discovering happily that the person that is being freed is me!

This too shall pass.... Like a puff of smoke

My granddad who is now over 90 fought in World War 2 as a sailor in the U.S. Navy. Sometime during the war he had his forearm tattooed, with a symbol I could never decipher, and words that had little meaning for me as a child: This too shall pass. In  our current moment, when tattoo sightings are about as rare as spotting someone wearing a t-shirt or a hat, it's hard to imagine just how exotic, and unchurchy this tattoo seemed to a young boy. A young boy, who belonged to a conservative Baptist church and excelled at scripture memorization and Sword drills. Sword drills sound awesomingly cool, and they are! You are given a verse and then you take your sword (the Bible - the sword of the Spirit) and race to find the verse the fastest. I loved it, and if I may say so, I was quite good with my sword. Maybe, not the undefeated champion - but take my word for it - really good. As a boy excelling at sword drills, I did not run into many people with tattoos at my church, but there it was on my granddad's arm. And the tattoo was especially hard too miss as he would light or take a drag on one of his unfiltered Pall Malls. Pall Malls (or any cigarette or smoking device for that matter), were also not commonly sighted in my conservative church. I have vivid memories of being in my grandparents living room and watching absolutely mesmerizing shifting clouds of smoke hanging halfway between the floor and the ceiling. These clouds far surpassed whatever programming was coming from the floor model TV - after all, 38 years later I can recall as if I am still there the shifting cloud, with something of the same wonder I had then, but for the life of me I would be hard pressed to recount a program I watched on the floor model TV. I was so captured by the smoke (and my dear, beautiful and diligent mom kept the proof that the smoke captured me), that all my kindergarten workbooks are filled with pictures of a wide variety of animals and people (but mainly dogs), with pipes in their mouths and lovely plumes of smoke billowing from the pipes goin over their heads. Anywhere in my letter books, where the authors asked for a picture I filled it in with animals and people, pipes firmly affixed, and plumes of smoke pouring forth. Picture of people sledding? Gleeful animals and peoples speeding down a hill, pipes in mouth, smoke trailing behind. Swimming? Head and arms poking out of the water, pipe in mouth - smoke rising to the clouds. Where the letter book authors didn't ask me to draw, but had drawn pictures for me, I helped the authors by drawing in the pipes and smoke that they had forgot to supply. My granddad, did not smoke a pipe, but my uncle did and he was as cool and unchurchy as my granddad. The pipe smelled fantastic, and he was frequently at my grandparents when I was also there - weekends and holidays. The smoke and the tattoo made an indelible impression on me, that I in kindergarten obviously attempted to record for posterity. In short I loved my granddad and my uncle and my whole family and life- seemed simply as enchanted as the smoke that hung between the floor and the ceiling of my grandparents' living room.

That time of my life has passed (though it is retained in my memory - even though it is likely that I do not have a single atom in my body at present that I had as a kindergartner! -those atoms have been passed on to a different part of the universe). My granddad's tattoo has absolutely been proven correct time and time again. My guess is that the tattoo was meant as a comfort during the horrors of an awful war, and being away from home on a foreign sea. This too shall pass. It did pass. World War 2 is over. My granddad returned home. He built the house he still lives in with my fantastic grandma, whom he married over 70 years ago!, and with whom he raised three sons, the middle one being my dad. But, not only the war has passed, the childhood of his sons has passed, the childhood of his son's children have passed, (I along within all my cousins are fully grown - shoot, if I like my granddad live to be 90, I am precisely at this moment middle-aged - half my life has passed), and some of the childhoods of his son's children's children has passed - like my oldest daughter's who has now entered college. The childhood of some of his great-grandchildren has passed!

My granddad as a boy knew his great-granddad, who had been a drummer boy in the American civil war for the union army. My granddad has told me a story about helping his great-granddad Wesley go and purchase a horse when Wesley was in his eighties, and Wesley riding it barebacked for over thirteen miles. Wesley has - as you will have guessed - long since passed. The past, good and bad, has obviously passed. And, just like 2015 has passed, this year, 2016 will pass. As will I. As will you. Sorry, that sounds a little depressing, but, my friends, it is true - This too shall pass.

I love that tattoo, but more, I love the man, on whose arm it is inked. And, today on this first day of 2016, in this passing moment, I am grateful for the moments that have passed, and I hope to receive as gifts with gratitude the passing moments to come. And, with gratitude for the amazing moments of the past, I am simultaneously thankful, that some moments have passed I am heartened to know that the dreadful moments of the past, have passed. After all the civil war has passed, as has World War 2, as has the Vietnam war - in which my dad served. Legalized slavery has passed. Jim Crow has passed.

So 2016 - This too shall pass ... this election cycle; the Red Wings' season; MSU's playoff run to the football National championship has passed; this wonderful season of my life with beautiful growing kids who learn and play and laugh and at times are simply wonderful reminders of living in the moment - this too shall pass; this season when my kids are irresponsible and times don't seem to pick up one damn thing they get out or one mess they make - this too shall pass; this agonizing season when I am again in the midst of trying to figure out what to do for work - this too shall pass; this season when I feel an amazing amount of freedom from the anxiety of religious structures - this too shall pass; this season when I am at moments so angry at the structures of religion that grind people up that I feel like cussing like I imaging the sailors on my granddad's ship cussed - this season shall pass; this season when I am so thankful for family and friends for the journey who love me and would love me even if I did cut loose and cuss like a sailor - this too shall pass.  This too shall pass like the shifting cloud of smoke that hung between the floor and ceiling of my grandparent's living room. (Incidentally my granddad quit smoking cold turkey in his sixties! - the stage of his life where he was a smoker too passed).

In this passing year, I'm hoping to live in the present - after all what are the other options? -  receiving as gifts wonderful moments as treasures that are passing. And, I hope to live with deep hope knowing that the excruciatingly painful moments that are also certain to arrive- whether I would have them or not - too shall pass.

And the writing of my first post of 2016 too has passed.