Never Forget a Theology of Forgiveness

Never Forget a Theology of Forgiveness by Rev. Audette Fulbright delivered on September 15, 2013 at Unitarian Universalist Church of Cheyenne This weekend, our Jewish brothers and sisters celebrated Yom Kippur. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are called the Days of Awe, or the days of Repentance. The High Holy season in the Jewish tradition is a time of solemn, attentive reflection on one s life, examining it to discover where one needs to ask or offer forgiveness. In the Jewish tradition, one does not come before God, asking God s forgiveness on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, until one has first forgiven and been forgiven by the people in our lives. This is not insignificant, for it is during the High Holy season that God opens the Book of Life, to see what is written there, and then, on Yom Kippur, delivers a final judgment. After this, the Book of Life is sealed until the Days come again the following year. As Unitarian Universalists, we deeply believe in the value of understanding and gaining wisdom from the world's great religious traditions. So what better time to ask ourselves, what is forgiveness, and then to examine our own needs for this most powerful of human interactions. When I first shared the title of this sermon, one person responded, Never forget? That seems odd for a sermon on forgiveness. I thought it was forgive and forget. I could not have hoped for a better straight line. Yes, this is the old saw about forgiveness. Forgive and forget. But to add an assumption of forgetfulness to the necessity of forgiveness is a profoundly problematic way of looking at the subject - an active impediment rather than an assist. Besides, it lacks the basic virtue of being true: very few people actually do forget, even when they manage to

forgive. So there s nothing much to recommend it, and many things wrong with it as a theology. When a matter is small, unless we are terribly damaged as emotional beings, we may well forgive and forget. For example, if you lend me a Tupperware dish, and I forget to return it to you at our next meeting, you may well forgive me without thinking much about it. On the other hand, who worries about those? If the matter is small, so is the forgiveness required. Someone bumps into you on a lurching subway. Sorry, they say, and you answer, No problem. Leaving the subway, you never think of it again. Who cares? No, it is only those matters which do real damage to us that make forgiveness matter, and in these forgetting is not a reasonable part. More significantly, it is not a necessary part. We can forgive without forgetting. And most of the time, remembering is an important part of real forgiveness. The author Philip Yancey talks about the unreasonable calculus of grace inherent in forgiveness. So often, we are damaged badly at the hands of another person some of us, beyond repair of the body. Even if someone comes to us and says, deeply and sincerely, I am sorry, it does not undo the damage. Yet holding onto anger is such a destructive thing to choose. Yancey shares this story of the poison of ungrace, of refusing to forgive, in his book What's So Amazing About Grace?: <read ungrace story from What s So Amazing About Grace?, pps. 75-81> There is a terrible cost in refusing to forgive. The Buddha said, Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned. And this is true. Forgiveness may offer an incredible grace to the one forgiven, but most of all, it begins to heal the one who forgives. Francis & Berthe Climbié have a story of forgiveness. Their daughter, Victoria s life was short and tragic. Born in Ivory Coast, at the age of seven, Francis and Berthe entrusted her into the care of a relative, Marie-Therese Kouao, who brought her to England to be educated. It was

here that she met her death tortured and killed by the very person who had promised to help her. Initially, when we first heard about Victoria we could not forgive. We are human beings and no human being is perfect. We were tormented by guilt, anguish and hatred, and could not understand how our daughter s life could have been destroyed by someone who had promised to take care of her. Victoria was very, very precious to us. We had so many expectations and so much hope for our child. Even so, from the very first day we heard about the death of Victoria, we began praying that one day we would be able to forgive. If you want to live happily and at ease in this life you have to learn to forgive. It shouldn t matter if the person is unable to ask for forgiveness or even acknowledge that they ve done wrong, because forgiveness cannot be based on conditions. So we re not waiting for Marie-Therese to ask for our forgiveness: whether she asks for it or not we have forgiven her. But while Marie-Therese has shown no remorse, her boyfriend, Carl Manning, did ask for our forgiveness. The sad thing is he hasn t achieved freedom not in his body, his mind or his soul. We can t ignore their culpability. Whatever wrong people do in life there will be a price to pay, but it is not for us to punish. Many people in England have asked us why we gave Victoria away. I want to say that we didn t give her away. In African society children are not just the children of their parents, but the children of their aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, brothers and sisters. The greatest privilege of all is for a relative to offer to educate your child abroad. In Africa we are only able to survive because those who are successful feel a duty to help those who are not. What comfort is revenge? Our greatest desire is that something positive should come out of this tragedy. That s why we re opening a school in the Ivory Coast. It will be a centre of excellence providing education for children from all around the world. The sole reason for Victoria coming to England was to get an education. This school is our way of immortalising the spirit and the name of our child.

(www.theforgivenessproject.com) What is it that makes forgiveness possible? One thing is, it cannot be rushed. If you have been damaged, the truth is, you must take time to heal. The story needs to be told. The true nature of the damage must be understood. And then, most of all, the person who has been hurt must come to understand that the anger and desire for revenge, the clinging to the pain and suffering is an act of renunciation: it is to give away one s power. Healing and forgiveness can come under any circumstance. They are perhaps easiest, though not necessarily easy, when the offender sincerely apologizes, and asks to be forgiven, and perhaps offers some form of restitution. This is a gift for both. But even when the offender refuses to accept responsibility, forgiveness is possible. It is an act of reclaiming one s power and place in the world; it is to be an actor in one s own healing, and also to lift oneself up spiritually and emotionally. Dr. Frederick Luskin has spent his career working on the question of forgiveness, how to forgive. For those stuck in needing to forgive, he offers this advice: 1. Know exactly how you feel about what happened and be able to articulate what about the situation is not OK. Then, tell a trusted couple of people about your experience. 2. Make a commitment to yourself to do what you have to do to feel better. Forgiveness is for you and not for anyone else. 3. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciliation with the person that upset you, or condoning of their action. What you are after is to find peace. 4. Get the right perspective on what is happening [now]. Recognize that your primary distress is coming from the hurt feelings, thoughts and physical upset you are suffering [in this moment], not what offended you or hurt you two minutes or ten years ago. 5. At the moment you feel upset [rising again,] practice a simple stress management technique to soothe your body s flight or fight response. [Forgiving does not mean that

magically, everything will be better. You may still recall the suffering. What it does offer is a new way to deal with the pain, and less attachment to it.] 8. Remember that a life well lived is your best revenge. Instead of focusing on your wounded feelings, and thereby giving the person who caused you pain power over you, learn to look for the love, beauty and kindness around you. 9. Amend your grievance story to remind you of the heroic choice to forgive. To truly forgive is to rescue the most valuable part of yourself. Forgetting is not a reasonable part of the equation. One of the most valuable aspects of human memory is its ability to help us avoid those things that can hurt or damage us. Remembering even the most painful things can allow us to work through the suffering and find new meaning or hope; it can cause us to understand our own strength. It can also allow us to protect ourselves in important ways, and to help us protect those we love from the same or a similar harm. Even if one comes to a place of forgiveness with someone who molested us as a child, there is no wisdom in forgetting the risk and offering new children into the offender s care. Remembering is part of healing, too. It is the only safe and honest way one can be in relationship again. One can only set the wise boundaries that allow for the most positive relationship possible if one both forgives, and remembers. Asking for forgiveness can be the heartrendingly painful, too. As in the case of Daisy s father earlier, one possible outcome is that one s request may be rejected. It is a risk, and such a risk is the rightful consequence of our actions when we hurt or damage another human being. Yes, we may be rebuffed. But it is right to ask forgiveness, and to offer what amends we can. Forgiven or not, we can step forward and begin anew ourselves if we try. John Carter tells a story of asking and being forgiven. I started getting into trouble when I was at school shoplifting, burglary, that kind of thing. At 14 I was sent to a detention centre for three months, after which I went straight back into petty crime. When I left school I had no qualifications and joined a

Hell s Angels motorcycle club. By now I was committing more serious offences, making the lives of my mother and four sisters an absolute misery. But for me it was all just a game of cops and robbers. I was in and out of jail and even committed a serious offence while on the run: that was when I hurled a table into the air in a pub and a young girl had her face badly lacerated. At one time I ended up doing solitary at Dartmoor for 18 months because by that point I d become almost rabid and would attack anyone. It was then that a psychiatrist suggested that I go to the therapeutic prison, Grendon Underwood. At Grendon we worked together in small groups. A lot of soul searching went on. I did exceedingly well in therapy and started helping others. I started getting anxious about being released in case I went back into crime. It was then that my probation officer started telling me about restorative justice. She felt I d reached a point where I could feel empathy, and suggested that perhaps I should meet one of my victims. The question was, which one? There were literally hundreds. My probation officer asked me which offence stuck in my mind as the most damaging, and I immediately thought about the incident in the pub. The victim was tracked down and amazingly she agreed to meet me. When I walked into the visiting room, I noticed that the girl had a prominent six-inch scar on the side of her face. I had no idea who she was and yet I felt this deep bond between us because we d shared something something that for her was of course entirely negative. We both sat there and looked at each other. I could see that she was full of rage. It was highly traumatic; her father was clenching his fists, her mother looked distraught. I was the first to speak, and for the first time I found I could express how I d felt at the moment of the offence. It was also the first time I was able to take on board the hurt I d caused. Then she took me through what had happened to her that night and how it had affected her ever since. We both broke down and cried. Finally, I told her how remorseful I felt and it was then, after a brief pause, that she said, I forgive you. I hadn t asked for this and I certainly didn t expect it, but by God those words had a profound effect. They stopped me in my tracks and concentrated

my resolve never to repeat anything like this. As for my victim, I think meeting me allowed her to put a face to her fear and reassured her that she would never again be attacked. That was in 1989, and every year that goes by is another year that I haven t re-offended. The only person I have to thank for that is my victim. She gave me this incredible gift. (www.theforgivenessproject.com) The truth is, most people take a middle road between forgiving and forgetting, both, especially if they have been raised in any culture where face or manners or anything of this sort is highly valued. In such cultures, we tend to move quickly to it s OK, but secretly hold the incident in our hearts, and nurture it along. It grows like a poisonous weed, and changes not only our relationship with the one we feel harmed by, but also everyone else, in subtle or significant ways. Similarly, we may say sorry when what we really mean is, look, can t you drop this and let s act like it never happened? This is not an apology and no reconciliation occurs. For example, in good relationship counseling, if one partner has an affair and both want to continue the relationship, then a simple I m sorry cannot mend the relationship. Forms of reparation need to be taken, though thoughtfully and usefully. Often, one extreme is the partner who wants to say I m sorry but means, look, just leave me alone about this now. The other is the offended partner who says, I forgive you, as long as you keep jumping through these hoops. In a real reconciliation process, there is a sincere apology on the one hand, and work on forgiving on the other. There is also a long examination of how the affair came to pass; what unmet needs were present, what opportunities for its consummation? What genuine acts can the offender take that will make a difference and set more at ease the one whose trust has been damaged? How can each more carefully examine their own roles in the relationship? How can the offender hear the pain of their loved one and understand it, and accept responsibility for the actions that caused it? Often, one or both cannot do this, and the relationship ends. But the need for the one who was harmed to find a way to forgive and move on does not. At the core, forgiving and being forgiven are not simple acts, quickly and easily done. They can be, however, moments of the most powerful transformation, leading to peace and strength and relationships more beautiful than any that were possible before whatever

damage was done. A wise and unknown person once said, To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and to discover that prisoner was yourself. It is a hero s journey, to offer or ask for forgiveness. As witnesses to the Days of Awe, as we bow our heads in honor of the Day of Atonement celebrated the world over, let us each consider our lives and our hearts. Let us look in the nooks and crannies of our souls or at the elephants in our personal living rooms, and commit to the work of forgiveness. On this road, may we find the help of many friends who have traveled this road beside or before us. Because this, like so much of life, is a work best accomplished in the company of friends. May it be so for you. Amen.