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My mind keeps coming back to the question of forgiveness—both in terms of forgiving and being forgiven, both ourselves and others. Awhile back, the mighty Dicea wrote something profound about it. I deliberately haven’t reread that, because I wanted to worry less about what she had already said and more about what I was thinking now, with the clear understanding that I did read what she wrote, so any phrases that are similar are indisputably informed by her words.
What I think I’ve figured out is that forgiveness, if it exists at all, is something only some saints and God can give, at least as we conventionally understand it. I think the conventional understanding of the term is that forgiveness means that the thing that is done doesn’t matter (“All is forgiven”) and everything is “back the way it was.” Sometimes the offending party has to do some kind of penance, sometimes not.
I think that’s a crock, at least in terms of it actually happening. Being hurt always matters, and once Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall, he can’t be put back the way he was.
When I was a little girl and my mother told me to forgive someone for what he or she had done, I’d say, “I can forget about it Mommy.” Her response was, “That isn’t the same thing as forgiving.” But, to get to the point where something someone has done doesn’t matter, unless you are that saint, or God, the only way I believe it can happen is to forget it ever happened. If things are going to “go back the way it was” then the only way to do that is to forget the incident, otherwise it never goes back.
Of course, that isn’t a solution, because if the offended party ever remembers, then the pain/sin becomes fresh again: new, clear, and in need of assuaging. And the whole hurtful cycle has to repeat, so what, really is the point?
Which begs the question what does happen, when it works?
I think it isn’t a matter of forgiving, and shouldn’t be a matter of forgetting; it’s a matter of starting over. We don’t forgive a person who hurts us. When the pain/offense/sin isn’t something that leads to a complete severing of connection, what happens is that the parties end one relationship and begin a new one. An offense that needs “forgiving” is the kind that fundamentally alters our understanding of each other, making us, in essence, new people. And for each new person who enters our lives, we make a new relationship. The kind of relationship we make is based on our past experience with others, our understanding of who this new person is and what s/he was and is capable of, and the skills, armor, and compassion we are willing to bring to the relationship. It’s based on experience and expectation, both of ourselves and the other party. This is true whether it’s a new boss, a new lover, a new baby or when constructing a new relationship from the salvageable parts of a ruptured one. [It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “serial monogamy,” but I digress].
This isn’t as eloquent as it was the other day while I was driving home (I am, I must say, a f***ing brilliant essayist when I’m driving), but I think this is the meat of it. So, while I’ll still use the word forgive, it really isn’t what I mean. I think those who have “forgiven me” for things I’ve done are just amazing people willing to have a new relationship with someone who is in many ways similar to someone in his/her past who hurt them or someone they cared about. And when I forgive, I do the same.
Now, the whole question of penance, and willful wrong, is a whole other subject, for a whole different day.
What I think I’ve figured out is that forgiveness, if it exists at all, is something only some saints and God can give, at least as we conventionally understand it. I think the conventional understanding of the term is that forgiveness means that the thing that is done doesn’t matter (“All is forgiven”) and everything is “back the way it was.” Sometimes the offending party has to do some kind of penance, sometimes not.
I think that’s a crock, at least in terms of it actually happening. Being hurt always matters, and once Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall, he can’t be put back the way he was.
When I was a little girl and my mother told me to forgive someone for what he or she had done, I’d say, “I can forget about it Mommy.” Her response was, “That isn’t the same thing as forgiving.” But, to get to the point where something someone has done doesn’t matter, unless you are that saint, or God, the only way I believe it can happen is to forget it ever happened. If things are going to “go back the way it was” then the only way to do that is to forget the incident, otherwise it never goes back.
Of course, that isn’t a solution, because if the offended party ever remembers, then the pain/sin becomes fresh again: new, clear, and in need of assuaging. And the whole hurtful cycle has to repeat, so what, really is the point?
Which begs the question what does happen, when it works?
I think it isn’t a matter of forgiving, and shouldn’t be a matter of forgetting; it’s a matter of starting over. We don’t forgive a person who hurts us. When the pain/offense/sin isn’t something that leads to a complete severing of connection, what happens is that the parties end one relationship and begin a new one. An offense that needs “forgiving” is the kind that fundamentally alters our understanding of each other, making us, in essence, new people. And for each new person who enters our lives, we make a new relationship. The kind of relationship we make is based on our past experience with others, our understanding of who this new person is and what s/he was and is capable of, and the skills, armor, and compassion we are willing to bring to the relationship. It’s based on experience and expectation, both of ourselves and the other party. This is true whether it’s a new boss, a new lover, a new baby or when constructing a new relationship from the salvageable parts of a ruptured one. [It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “serial monogamy,” but I digress].
This isn’t as eloquent as it was the other day while I was driving home (I am, I must say, a f***ing brilliant essayist when I’m driving), but I think this is the meat of it. So, while I’ll still use the word forgive, it really isn’t what I mean. I think those who have “forgiven me” for things I’ve done are just amazing people willing to have a new relationship with someone who is in many ways similar to someone in his/her past who hurt them or someone they cared about. And when I forgive, I do the same.
Now, the whole question of penance, and willful wrong, is a whole other subject, for a whole different day.
