Forgiveness

"Forgiveness" is something that's banded about in our society without too many people, I think, considering too much about what it actually means and whether it's a good thing or not.  This blog is a random set of reflections on the concept.

School Assemblies

"Forgive our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us".  I grew up with prayers at school assemblies (do they still do that?) and we would mumble these lines of course without thinking about it or even actually understanding it.  I had a vague notion this related to land rights, I guess.  When I considered the German version I'd also been taught (double indoctrination!) it referred to "debts" not trespassers. More confusing still.  Liberal, atheist American friends are often amazed at our lack of separation of Church and State.  As I explain to them, hymns and prayers at school are the best aversion therapy possible to lead to generations of atheists being produced in Britain.

No trespasses, or no trespassing? All *so* confusing for a blond

The meaning of this line actually refers to sins - the word in Aramaic for debt and sin is the same.  We are asking for forgiveness for things we have done wrong, and saying we will forgive others for wrongs towards us.  As with much of Christianity, a potentially really sound, important lesson is being missed because so many people are turned off not just by the way it is taught, but the way Christianity is perceived in such negative terms in this country for a whole raft of reasons.

The concept of forgiveness is far from unique to Christian thought.  I spent a week in March in Turkey with a beautiful, wonderful woman: a follower of Sufi Islamic Mysticism.  Her utterly inspiring personality was founded square on the concepts of love, forgiveness and the heart.  Contrary to many people's perceptions, Judaism is full of the requirement to forgive.

The best explanation I have experienced about the power and need for forgiveness did not come in a religious context, however.  I was on a personal development/ communication course called the Landmark Forum that I have previously touched on, back in August 1997.  One of the results of the course was my going out and phoning my Dad to tell him I loved him.  Please do read that short blog if you haven't already done so.  That story matters a huge amount to me.

A Fireman Forgives

The power of the Landmark Education courses (this Observer article gives a reasonably fair assessment) is that you experience other people working through things and you learn directly from them.  This was 15 years ago and I remember so clearly a man on the course who broke down during the module on "forgiveness".  His story in summary was that he was a young professional fireman.  He'd been accused of arson by a "friend" who was getting revenge for the guy having run off with his girlfriend.  He had been suspended from work, was going on trial a short time after the course.  The fireman said he could hear what the course leader was saying about forgiveness, but he could not, and would not do it.  The wrong was too great, put simply. 

The course leader spelled out two contrasting situations.  In both the fireman was found guilty, lost his job and went to prison.  In the first he would fester hate in his heart for the perpetrator.  This would consume him every day, eating away at his personality and his being.  At the end of the prison term he would come out, utterly broken, full of revenge and would probably do something stupid in some way or other.  It was as bleak as you could get.  In the other situation, the fireman forgives his friend.  He serves his time, but he comes out with decades still in front of him and a daunting task of rebuilding his life.  The task would be met from a very different space, however: one of power and creativity, not anger and hate.  Life is sometimes desperately unfair.  We cannot control the terrible things that can happen.  They can literally be of this life-changing magnitude and so, so, so, fucking wrong.  But what we can do is control or seek to control how we behave and react in the light of them.

I can picture the pain on the fireman's face and the tears streaming down his face.  He could not do it.  He asked what it meant to forgive.  The course leader said it was to let go off the hate, and more to wish the perpetrator well.  Even more, it required verbalisation.  To give it real power, it had to become real: the course leader asked the man to call his "friend" and tell him this is how he felt.

Not *THE* fireman, just a good excuse for a hot pic

The course runs over 4 days.  This sounds so revoltingly cheesy, but on the last day a man came in whom we hardly recognised.  The fireman looked like he had had the weight of a mountain lifted off him.  His energy was full of brightness, happiness, empowerment.  You know what I mean: you've felt like this at times before and you've seen it in other people.  He'd called his friend and told him that he was sad their friendship had ended, but that he wished him no ill: in fact he wished him all good things in the world.  The friend of course couldn't believe what he was hearing: shit like this doesn't happen.  People just don't behave like that.  I saw the fireman again some months later (on another Landmark course).  He'd been acquitted and was back in his job.  I've no small doubt the way he conducted himself as a witness was a huge factor in that.

Selfish and Individual

The above story hopefully demonstrates that even in an extreme situation, forgiveness can be a very powerful, life-changing thing.  It is also an inherently selfish concept.  I don't think there's the slightest thing wrong in that.  The problem with the Lord's Prayer "you must forgive" version is you're not taught *why* - like many desperately valuable religious messages.  You're just told to do it - essentially because we tell you to, because we know best.  The fireman was forgiving for his own sake, not because he's a "good man" or any other reason.  It's about making the best, for him, of a terrible situation.  That makes far more sense to my analytical way of thinking that the "it's an inherently good thing, don't ask questions" approach.

Another problem with the Christian "forgive everyone, forgive everything" approach is that, for me, it's way too broad-brushed and unfocused.  It therefore loses its power to me: it's just a mantra.  I read a fascinating book that brought this home to me: Simon Wiesenthal's Sunflower.  The first half is Wiesenthal's account of his time in Lemberg concentration camp in Poland (he lost 88 members of his extended family in the Holocaust).  He describes how a young dying Catholic Nazi officer asks for a Jew - any Jew - to forgive him for the crime of having burnt 300 Jews to death in a house.  He does not give the forgiveness and asks the reader what he should have done.  The second half of the book is made up of 53 short essays giving responses from former Nazis, survivors, leading theologians (including Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama), lawyers, human rights activists and philosophers.

An outstanding read: recommended

You can divide the responses into two broad categories: those influenced by the general Christian "you must forgive" attitude and the much more analytical and legalistic approach that typifies the Jewish response.  The latter resonates far more strongly with me.  It says that you can only forgive what has been done to you individually.  Wiesenthal was not being asked to forgive a wrong the German had done to him personally, but rather to forgive on behalf of the Jewish people  How can he forgive on behalf of a murdered 3 year old in that house?  It is simply not his place to: the act of forgiving becomes devalued, meaningless and he has simply no locus or right to do so.

This for me hits the nail on the head for the reason people are just turned off by the cliché of the need to forgive everything and everyone that is so often banded about.  Forgiveness is hugely powerful, but for me it is a personal, individual thing, it has to be directed at the wrongdoer and relate to a specific wrong done to you, yourself.

Forgiveness of Self

Forgiveness frequently of course does not relate to such extreme situations.  Let's face it, few of us are put up on fabricated arson charges or asked to forgive the murder of our people in the holocaust.  We do however frequently insist, at all costs, on making ourselves right and others wrong - frequently holding grudges that last years and that harm no one but ourselves.  I'm no saint: I of course fall into this myself, but do at least work on acknowledging it and trying to let go.  When I understand the rationale and how to do it, it is so much easier.

The last aspect about forgiveness that is often forgotten is the need to forgive oneself.  This is enormous and is at least as powerful as forgiving those who have wronged you.  It is not, for me as an atheist, about seeking forgiveness by going along to a confessional box or praying to a spirit in the sky.

It is about realising that we are all imperfect, make mistakes in life, and can carry round the guilt of that for years in a way which harms us.  Again we come back to a purely "self" or "selfish" (if you like) motivation.  There are things that have happened to me that I could beat myself up about forever.  What I cannot do is turn the clock back.  Shit happens: through my own fault, or through no fault of my own.   We either learn from them or carry the pain with us to our deaths.  With the worst things that have happened in my life, I genuinely have forgiven the whole situation and instead concentrated on a massive learning and personal growth opportunity in them.

One Last Recommendation

I've read so many "personal development" books both before, and especially since,   The Landmark courses helped me enormously through the whole thing.  Another one that did is Louise L Hay's "You Can Heal Your Life".  Here is someone who is frankly utterly bat-shit crazy, but who actually talks so much sense.  Forgiveness and love, of others and of the self, are absolutely key again to her message.  It's completely non-religious and I guess says nothing the great religions don't.  It is however presented in a way that resonated strongly with me.

No I'm not getting a commission

If you don't fancy going on a course like Landmark, and anything I have said has touched you, buy Louise's book.  It's available on Amazon and it too has the potential to change your life, if you read it with an open mind and put her suggestions into effect.  It is extremely practical, and I really do recommend it.  If you choose to ignore my recommendation, I do however of course also forgive you.  IDIOT ;-)

I was going to write this blog anyway, but after a DM conversation late last night with a friend on Twitter, this blog is dedicated to you.  You know who you are.

PME x




[Post Script: I've also had this strongly recommended to me by a friend who went through a deeply traumatic experience, forgave, and says it profoundly changed her.  Note the strap line: "Holding a Grudge is Hazardous to Your Health".  On that basis, let's add it to the list!]