Forgive You Not
I'm joining the entire Red Room community in writing a short blog post on this week's topic: "Forgiveness." We'll choose at least one of these blogs to be featured on Red Room's homepage next week, and we'll choose one blog writer to receive a free book from a Red Room Author. Submit your blog entry by Friday at 10:30 a.m. PDT [GMT-0700] for consideration. Be sure to tag the entry with the keyword term "forgiveness blog” so we can find it.
Living here in the peace-and-love world capital, I felt, for a long time, very bad about my inability to forgive a few people who had directly or indirectly done me wrong, and to thereby live forevermore in a state of transcendent bliss. Then I said to myself, "F*** that. This is how I feel, and I will not beat myself up about it." Call me unevolved, but I don't think forgiveness is always necessary--or always necessarily a good thing. There are a few people whom I'm going to stay angry at for a while longer--maybe forever. I will die cursing their names and shaking my fist at the heavens.
So you might say that I forgave myself for being unable to forgive others. That counts for something, right? I'm working on being a better person, obviously, but for now I'm still royally pissed off at a select group of jerks, crooks, and nitwits.
I accept that harboring anger for another person affects me much more than that other person. But I don't accept the notion that anger is always a bad thing. Can it not also be a motivator? A protector? A reminder? My inability to forgive a malicious nincompoop of a former boss is one of the things that has motivated me to succeed in subsequent jobs. A tiny kernel of rage left behind by a duplicitous ex-lover guarantees that I will look be more careful with my heart next time. And unremitting anger about malefactors on the world stage keeps me ever wary about the actions of governments.
I don't want to make peace with these people--for the same reason I don't want to take some mood altering prescription drugs that have been suggested. My feelings about these people, about these things that happened, are part of what makes me, me: complicated. . . a bit dolorous. . . dense. Without them, I fear I might float into the lower atmosphere like one of those flimsy New Age balloon people who feel only love and other lighter-than-air emotions.
OK, I feel bad about calling those enlightened sorts "flimsy balloon people." But I acknowledge that my snarkiness is in part caused by jealousy, I will take a moment to forgive myself, and I'm sure they forgive me.
Some people think that holding grudges weighs a person down. But maybe I like being weighed down. Or maybe the trick is to always hold an even number of grudges--that way, they don't "weigh you down." Rather, they keep you balanced.
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Jessie Baker says:
forgiveness
I think people misdefine 'forgiveness'. Forgiveness is not about letting someone off the hook for offenses or hurts. It is about letting go of that hurt. It is not all right to say that what a person has done is okay, or that it doesn't have lasting effects. But rather it is a way to move forward from the point of the offense.
The injured party is the real winner in forgiveness. But a gracious forgivee can find redemption as well.
Katie Burke says:
forgiveness or enabling?
Charles, I'm with you. I forgive many wrongs in my life, but I withhold forgiveness from a select few people. Some say forgiveness is for the benefit of the forgiver, not for the soul forgiven, as justification for the idea that we should forgive everyone for everything and just get on with it. While I think that's largely true, I think I would do myself a disservice to issue blanket forgiveness without exception just because that is, reportedly, what good people do.
I was once at a meditation retreat on forgiveness, led by Jack Kornfield, and I told him I was having trouble forgiving someone who had offended several women within my community and was still doing it. He said, "It sounds like you're not ready to forgive." I expected him to launch into some should-laden speech about how I needed to evolve to become ready for forgiveness, so I could be a good person like all the forgivers of the world are ... but no. He followed up by saying, "There are many people whom I can't forgive, because they haven't stopped committing their offenses." I realized then that it would be far too much work to keep forgiving someone who wasn't finished being a social menace! Totally inefficient.
I apply this logic to people I've known closely who have "done me wrong," who haven't apologized. If they know where to find me and haven't owned their behavior, then in my mind, they are still offending, since I bear the hurt of what they did without the support of their acknowledgment and remorse. The offense isn't over when I'm still in process with it.
Time has healed some wounds, allowing me to forgive some who still harm others and/or who never apologized for an original offense against me or my loved ones. But for the slights that linger for which there is no remorse, I don't agree with those who say forgiveness would heal me. I would feel like I was slapping my own face.
Bottom line: I think some people just want the world to be cute and nice, and anyone who reminds them that badly intentioned people exist threatens their world view. If that were not the case, more people would band together to hold harm-doers accountable, rather than saying, "You should just forgive."
Katie Burke
Lani Cox says:
forgive this
new to red room and i enjoyed reading your post on bulling (not what happened to you but your writing).
i also wanted to point out that i liked "a tiny kernel of rage" and the last 3 paragraphs of this post. and i know you won't get tired of hearing this because i am sure you have heard this before: i like your style.
i look forward to reading your other posts.