Why forgive?

Forgiveness

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel.  Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”

                                        Catherine Ponder

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

                                        Lewis B. Smedes

          I had this dream when I was eighteen: It was ‘judgment day’ and I was in a very long line of people waiting to go before a judge.  A woman came down the line and handed me a small envelope containing the name of my judge and a rosary; she told me, “You must forgive Dave before you can enter heaven.”  You should know here that (1) I am not Catholic, and (2) Dave (fictitious name) was a boy who had teased me mercilessly all through our school years.  Once, in the days of wrap-around skirts, he flew down the hallway, grabbed a string as he passed by me, and dropped my skirt around my ankles for the whole world to see.  That was just one of his many taunts.  I looked the woman square in the eye and told her, “I don’t think I can forgive him.”  Those were the words of youth---spoken before I myself had made every possible mistake.  Thankfully, life has served my ability to forgive.

          Caroline Myss, one of my favorite authors, in Anatomy of the Spirit, explains that holding on to old injuries and sorrows keeps them alive, and keeps the pain alive as well.  Every day that we feed judgment against another, we lose energy that would fuel a more abundant life right now.  Forgiveness is an act designed to free us, not our enemies.  Some will say, I forgive, but I do not forget.  That may be appealing, but I believe that if one does not forgive and forget, one is still feeding the wound and not the healing.

          I do not mean to say that one should forgive and then allow abuse to continue.  I mean that one must forgive and then move on.  If someone is abusing me, I have a responsibility to leave that situation, or else to accept my own complicity in the abuse.  Even the grace-filled act of forgiveness carries with it personal responsibility.  Gandhi once said, “The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.”  Perhaps he knew that accountability lies as much with the forgiver as with the forgiven.

                                        Keeping the faith

                                        Jane