Forgiveness

As is my usual Sunday morning habit I was listening to “On Being” with Krista Tippet.  One of her scientists guest this morning was Michael McCollough who is the author of Beyond Revenge”  The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct.     I was fascinated by what he had to say and have ordered the book to read.   As a person who  has come out of a Christian tradition and has extensively studied Buddhism I have long been interested in  the question of why we humans find it so difficult to forgive each other.   I admire the work of Robert Enright, particularly his book, Forgiveness is a Choice –A Step by Step Process for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope.

Perhaps my exposure to the subject of SIN by ministers of the Southern Baptist Church I attended as a child first sparked my interest in the subject of forgiveness. Perhaps it was the fact that it seemed to me that my mother was very generous in the giving of her time and energy to point out the extraordinary number of times that I could commit grievous errors of judgment in a single day and in a very consistent fashion.  Perhaps, as I grew towards adulthood in a physical sense, it was my increasing awareness of how often I fell short of  the rigorous standards I had set for myself; of the number of times in any given day or week during which I allowed fear or some other emotion to determine my behavior.  Whether it was, as Jimmy Carter admitted, “I committed adultery in my heart,”  or the lies which I told to avoid admitting I had forgotten an appointment, been remiss in nurturing a friendship,  ignored a responsibility, oversold my abilities, or any of a long list of possible violations of the rules I had decided governed the life of anyone deserving of respect, I was sure that the  Christian concept of Grace did not apply to me. When the Buddhist’s talk about everyone deserving maître (holding oneself in the cradle of loving kindness) I knew that I was one of the exceptions.

It is no surprise that I took an interest in the concept of forgiveness and found it relatively easy most of the time to accept that others were deserving of forgiveness; that no one was worse than I.  The person who stole a valuable object was essentially no different than the person who took a pencil from the office or something else that was not theirs to take.  The person who killed someone in a fit of anger or because they were not paying attention while driving was no different than what I was capable of doing.   If I was honest, either I had thoughts of doing the same wrongs of those I  heard about  or I knew or, given the right circumstance, I could have that thought.

Obviously I have a very selfish, vested interest in adopting a belief that all we humans are deserving of forgiveness or none of us are deserving.    

I like the idea of the evolution of  the forgiveness instinct which Mr. McCollough suggests in the title of his book.   As I continued to live in the world,decade after decade, I could not help but notice that many, if not all of we humans,  as individuals or as collective entities have a difficult time forgiving ourselves and each other.  Once I got a graduate degree in clinical psychology and started my counseling career I became even more aware of the legion of people who find it difficult to forgive themselves. I had previously noticed this fact as a professional working for/with people struggling with addiction.  

The fear, of course, is that  if let ourselves and others off the hook for hurtful deeds than we humans will commit even more hurtful deeds.  Is that accurate?  Actually, in order to change our behavior we do have to be aware and be able to admit that not only did we hurt others, but that hurting others eventually leads to others hurting me more which leads to ….  It is a destructive process.

It seems to me that forgiveness requires, at a minimum, acceptance of:

·      The ability to accept that all we humans can and do hurt each other.
·      There is no accurate, scientific way to measure various ways we hurt ourselves, each other and mother nature.
·      Behavior is never committed in a vacuum.
·      Particular brains function differently at different times and differently than brains of others.
·      Much, if not most, of our anger which leads to blame is really because someone or something did not  behave in a way which we expected them to behave.  Whether is our car not starting, another driver not doing what we think he/she should do, the air conditioning not working well, or more frequently someone not responding to us emotionally the way that we thought  they would or expected them to, our expectations are the problem.  For example, for years as a young man,  I wanted my version of unconditional love from my mother.  I finally figured out that (1) she is already doing her best and (2) I only have control over giving what I want – unconditional love. 
·      It is not practical to withhold forgiveness.  If I espouse the view that so and so does not deserve forgiveness, than someone else will do the same to me, which means that …….
·      It is important that we strive to do our best to make it safe for we humans to be accountable which is not the same as beating ourselves up.  To be accountable means that we admit to ourselves that we did something which was hurtful. Instead of beating ourselves up we then put our energy into changing our behavior.  If as a parent of a child  we want  the behavior of our child to be kinder to others we need to focus on finding a way to teach our child that being kind  to others is not only the right thing to do it is more likely to lead to others being kind.
·      We must be willing to allow ourselves and each other to sincerely make amends to ourselves and others without the drama of a Puccini opera.