Meeting at the Well

"Forgiveness as an Antidote to Hate"
Unitarian Universalists of the Cumberland Valley
Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania

October 1, 2000
Reverend Judy Welles©

Invitation to Worship

As a starting point in my inquiry into the topic of forgiveness, I jaunted off to the library and consulted several dictionaries. Webster defines forgive as:

• to cease to feel resentment against on account of a wrong committed against, to give up claim to requital or retribution.

• to grant relief from, to refrain from exacting (in terms of money).

Random House offers:

• to grant free pardon for a remission or offense or debt.

• to give up all claim on account of.

• to cease to feel resentment toward.

And a look through a student dictionary offered a comparison of the synonyms excuse, pardon, forgive. Excuse is described as more casual in nature — the overlooking of errors. Whereas pardon tends to carry the weight of an outside authority and forgive suggests more personal feelings. It emphasizes giving up all wish to punish.

In all of these approaches, there is no mention of forgetting, but rather an indication that to forgive is to let go of the pain of the past, whether it is called hate, resentment, grudge, wish to retaliate, or debt, and to choose to move on. My observation and experience is that this letting go, this forgiving, is not a once and done thing. It is a process; a journey toward inner peace; a gradual finger-by-finger loosening of the grasp allowing the final release, as the pain transforms into compassion for self and the wrongdoer.

While the process of forgiveness is a personal one, the inability to move through that process or a long, drawn out, sustained resentment becomes detrimental not only to the individual who cannot or will not let go, but also to the community or communities in which that individual lives and functions.

As a child and young adult, I experienced this in the community of my family that included my nuclear family and my paternal grandparents. When 19, my grandmother was deeply wounded in an intimate relationship. She was unable to move through her pain to come to any peace, and carried the resentment and bitterness of the event to her grave.

Not only did she sustain her pain, but it seemed to grow within her, and eventually spilled over onto my father and then my mother, brother, and I. She wove a web of sticky, subtle, passive aggression that, one by one, caught us all individually and my family collectively. Snared in her awkward trap, we became isolated from each other and from vital parts of ourselves. We each came to resent her and, thus, my grandmother's grudge turned back on her. We all gradually retreated into a noisy silence, and her pain became a wedge that split the wholeness of the family.

The timeworn details aren't important to this discussion, but had she been able to let go of her pain, I believe the rest of us would not have shared her wound so profoundly. It took her death to allow each of us to enter into our individual and collective processes of forgiving her — of breaking the cycle and the silence, naming the wounds, and choosing to move on. This willingness to forgive has proven to be an essential step on my journey toward healing and reclaiming wholeness.

Perhaps it is true that letting go of pain and the wish to retaliate is necessary for all of us, enabling us to move forward into greater possibility.

Let us open our hearts and minds as we explore this challenging topic. Let us worship together.

— Wendy Gebb, Worship Associate

First Reading

In hunting-and-gathering cultures…, each person—the hunter, gatherer, cook, caretaker of children, wise elder, and even the tribal historian—was essential to the well-being of the community…

In primitive times, when one member offended another, it was essential that some mechanism for reconciling the injury was present. An errant member had to be allowed to return to the clan to ensure its survival, independent of the survival of the individual. No one could survive totally alone, and the group could not afford to lose any member.

Forgiveness, apart from being a mechanism for mending ruptured relationships between two individuals, was a method of restoring peace to the human groups to which individuals belong. It was a stopgap that prevented the injuries between individuals from becoming hostilities between their families and prevented family hostilities from becoming wars between their clans. In that way, forgiveness was a mechanism of survival not only for those who depended on each other for their personal needs but also for those who were at odds with each other to begin with. Forgiveness prevented the spread of hatred.

Today we are less mutually dependent as individuals, couples, friends, neighbors, or communities. People can do without each other and move in and out of any or all of these human groups as often as they like. The wounded individual grapples alone, and the injurer can move on to other partnerships, friendships, neighborhoods, and communities, carrying with him only the baggage of past relationships. But this does not mean that people do not need to feel the peace that forgiveness brings. It means that it has gotten much harder to forgive.

Second Reading "Crossing the Swamp,"

Here is the endless
wet thick
cosmos, the center
of everything—the nugget
of dense sap, branching
vines, the dark burred
faintly belching
bogs. Here
is swamp, here
is struggle,
closure—
pathless, seamless,
peerless mud. My bones
knock together at the pale
joints, trying
for foothold, fingerhold,
mindhold over
such slick crossings, deep
hipholes, hummocks
that sink silently
into the black, slack
earthsoup. I feel
not wet so much as
painted and glittered
with the fat grassy
mires, the rich
and succulent marrows
of earth—a poor
dry stick given
one more chance by the whims

of swamp water—a bough
that still, after all these years,
could take root,
sprout, branch out, bud—
make of its life a breathing
palace of leaves.

Sermon: Forgiveness as an Antidote to Hate

Some issues never go away. There are some vexations of the human condition that we have to revisit over and over again in the hope of finally getting them right. It’s as though the path of life were a spiral, in which some forward progress is made, but we keep coming around to the same issues again and again. If we are really making progress on the path of life, then we come to the same old issues at a new place on the path, with new understandings, new tools, new capacities. We deal with them in new ways. But they are still the same old issues.

One of them is forgiveness. Again and again throughout our lives we encounter the need for forgiveness: the need to forgive those who have wronged us, and also the need to be forgiven for the wrongs we have perpetrated.

Borrowing from the wisdom and deep life-understanding of our Jewish sisters and brothers, I have chosen to speak on the topic of forgiveness today because the Jewish High Holy Days have just begun. Friday evening at sunset (just at the time that I began writing this sermon) was the beginning of Rosh Hashanah; Yom Kippur, the most solemn holiday in the Jewish calendar, is a week from Tuesday, October 9. This ten-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is known as the High Holy Days, sometimes as The Days of Awe. It is a very solemn time in the Jewish year, a solemn time in the lives of Jews everywhere.

The overall theme of these two holidays and the days between them (and also, in fact, the days leading up to them) is the theme of review and renewal — review of one’s life and one’s behavior during the past year, and prayers for the renewal or continuance of life throughout the year which is just beginning.

It stands to reason that when one is placing one’s life under intense scrutiny and reviewing all of one’s deeds for the past year, the issue of forgiveness will arise. So one of the most serious undertakings of this holiest time of the Jewish year is grappling — once again, as they do every year on the spiral path of life — with the issue of forgiveness. Ultimately, during the twenty-five hours of Yom Kippur at the end of this holiday period, prayers will be offered to God repenting of the transgressions made against God and against God’s law. But in order to be in right relationship with God — which is the goal as the slate is washed clean and the new year begins — one must first be in right relationship with the people in one’s life. The offenses against God can only be forgiven by God, whereas the sins against one’s fellow human beings must be forgiven by the people involved.

This makes very good sense to me. In fact, I think it is a gift to live within a cultural pattern where the issue of forgiveness comes up regularly and solemnly. It is not taken lightly, as well it shouldn’t be. Jews know that every year they are going to look at themselves sternly in the mirror, review their actions of the previous year, and in some way attempt to make things right with the people they have wronged. Likewise they will be approached and asked for forgiveness — or perhaps they won’t be approached at all, yet they know in their hearts that forgiveness is called for, whether it is requested or not.

I know that the issue of forgiveness is looming large in the lives of many of you — realistically, it has to be an issue for all of us, human and fallible as we are, vulnerable and tender as we are, flawed and short-sighted and self-centered as we are. People sitting among us this morning have recently ended marriages and long relationships; people have been fired or downsized or in some way unwillingly been "released" from their jobs; people have let their friends down, not met their commitments, fallen back on their promises. People have hurt each other, people have disappointed each other, people have been unkind to each other, people have betrayed each other.

You may be sitting there thinking "Yikes, she’s talking about me!" And in a way I am, but I’m not singling anyone out here — I’m just speaking about the human condition that we share: the condition of needing to be forgiven and needing to forgive. Last summer, when we offered the question-and-answer service which we whimsically titled "Do Pigs Give Milk?" two of you came right out with it in your written questions. One of you asked "Can you speak about forgiveness and help me to understand the process of letting go?" and the other one asked the question from a different angle, "If revenge falls into your lap, is it wrong to embrace it?"

The fact that two out of about thirty questions among us were on this subject points to a deepening awareness of the way the issue of forgiveness touches our lives in many ways. While this once was a matter primarily dealt with in the sphere of religion, it is now being studied by physicians, psychologists, lawyers, businesspeople, and social workers. The Templeton Foundation Campaign for Forgiveness Research, funded by mutual fund millionaire John Templeton, has distributed $5 million over the past four years to researchers studying forgiveness in a wide variety of contexts, from forgiveness among chimpanzees and other simple primate societies (thus perhaps giving us some understanding of the evolutionary, pre-human roots of forgiveness) all the way to searches for hints of forgiveness in the transcripts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in South Africa. Other Templeton-sponsored research is looking at teaching forgiveness skills to couples before marriage in hopes of reducing the divorce rate, and promoting forgiveness as a way of reducing cardiovascular health problems.

As the issue of forgiveness moves out of the dim light of the confessional or the minister’s study and into the brighter light of scientific scrutiny, more clarity is appearing in understanding and identifying the steps that will lead to forgiveness. Because true forgiveness does not come easily; it should be understood as a long process with many steps, rather than simply a decision that is made and then life goes on as before. From the reading that I have done on this subject, especially the book from which Wendy read earlier, Forgiving the Unforgivable by Beverly Flanigan, I have come up with a simplified outline for what is in actuality a complex process. I’m not suggesting that those of you who face difficult issues of forgiveness will receive all the tools you need in the next fifteen minutes, but perhaps this admittedly oversimplified outline will at least help you to understand that there is a progression of steps to the process of forgiveness, and those of you who are in need of being forgiven will realize what it is that you are asking for.

First, it’s important to name the injury as an injury, and to acknowledge the ways you have been damaged by it, so that you will know what you are going to forgive. Naming has one overall objective — to help you interpret the meaning of your injury and your beliefs about it. By naming it, you will recognize the scope and depth of what has happened, from the initial event to the identification of specific damages you have incurred as a result. For example, a woman whose childhood sexual abuse has made it impossible for her to sustain an intimate relationship as an adult needs to realize that if she forgives, it will be as much for the emotional damage to her adult life as for the physical abuse in her childhood.

After naming comes the second step, blaming. That may sound strange to you, because we have been so inculturated that blaming is bad and must be avoided, but in fact, blaming has its place. It is a way of becoming clear about who was at fault, who broke the moral rules. There needs to be a full acknowledgement of how wrong the other person was to hurt you. Especially in situations where there has been a long pattern of wrongdoing, such as violence or abuse within a family, the victim may have grown up feeling as though there must be some reason for what has been done to them. It is part of human nature to want to believe that we live in a just world, and that therefore, when something bad happens, there must be a reason for it — or to put it even more strongly, someone deserved it.

This is the kind of thinking that states "If someone gets cancer, maybe they ate too much red meat," or "If a baby dies, God must have wanted it that way," or "If a man deserts his wife, she must have driven him to it." The problem with this kind of "just-world thinking," is that when a serious wrong is perpetrated against them personally, people are faced with a dilemma: either they have to come up with some reason why they actually deserved to be treated that way, thus keeping their concept of justice intact; or they have to abandon their construct of justice and admit that wrongdoing and harm can occur for no good reason at all — that events are often arbitrary and unfair, and that human behavior or life events in general often don’t follow any particular set of rules. Coming on top of the injury itself, this loss of one’s sense of justice and balance in the world can be doubly frightening and unsettling.

Thus, part of the eventual process of forgiveness will entail coming up with a new understanding of justice and how the world works, but that comes later. At this second stage, the task is blaming, putting the responsibility where it belongs and acknowledging that you have been wronged and it’s not your fault… if it’s not. Maybe it’s partly your fault… Because this is such a complex issue, it’s difficult to go much into detail with this process this morning, but you get the general idea.

People need to be able to hold someone responsible for their injuries. It’s not the same as being damaged by a lightening strike or some other random event, where blame really can’t be laid. But in cases of harm done to a person by another person, which is the context that these current Days of Awe occupy, someone must be held responsible. There is nothing wrong with blaming as long as it is an aspect of forgiving and not an end in itself. Through blaming, light is shed upon the situation, and the tasks ahead become clear. Blaming is a positive step forward, because once you can blame, you know whom you must forgive.

Naming and blaming, the first two steps, have to do with understanding what happened. Now it is time for some action. There is nothing more to understand about the injury — it happened, it changed your life, the blame has been placed. Now it is time to move forward. The next step is balancing the scales — that is, for the injured person to take steps to restore a sense of personal power and personal resources. Forgiveness comes from a position of strength, not of weakness, so in order to be able to forgive, an injured person must arrive at a place of strength.

It gets complicated here, because of course the kinds of injuries calling for forgiveness are numerous and complex, and thus there are a variety of ways of balancing the scales, depending on the circumstances. The general idea is that a person who has been injured has been the victim of someone else’s choice, has had their own choices taken away from them by another person exercising power over them. So balancing the scales means becoming a person who gets to exercise their own choices again, gets to feel powerful, gets to feel and actually be strong.

There are numerous ways this can happen. Women whose lives have been controlled by abusive husbands can, once free of the relationship, go back to school or find work that will result in increased personal independence, financial resources, and social power. People who have suffered abuse can become involved in support groups for others in similar circumstances, thus making their injuries an opportunity for offering support and understanding to others and thus achieving a sense of personal power.

One of the ways that balancing the scales helps us move toward ultimate forgiveness is that it puts our energies to better use than holding grudges, harboring resentments and nursing unhealed wounds. There is an authentic sense of moving on and reclaiming our health and power, breaking the cycle of pain and victimization that can go on and on as long as one feels powerless. This is a stage in the process where it is clear that engaging in forgiveness contributes to one’s personal health and to the restoration of the social fabric that may also have been damaged by the injury.

Finally, you come to a point where not forgiving is the only obstacle left; it’s the only thing standing between you and a full restoration to strength and health. This is the time for the fourth step, choosing to forgive. You remember that I said that the previous step, balancing the scales, involves regaining the ability to exercise your own choices — well now you have the opportunity actually to make some important choices.

You can choose to release the injurer from debt to you, forsake any idea that they have resources you want. When you choose to expect that no debt be repaid, you want nothing from them: no apology, no promises, nothing. You are saying that you are free from them and you wish them no harm. You are even.

Furthermore, you are free and so is the other person. When you make the choice to forgive, you set the injurer free and break the bond that has been between you, the bond that defined you both as victim and victimizer. Even if you choose to stay in relationship with that person — for example, a spouse who forgives his or her partner for infidelity and chooses to continue in the marriage — it will be different now; the relationship will be permanently changed. You can go forward together or separately, but you can’t go back.

And so you begin to look ahead, and that brings you to the final step in the process of forgiveness. This is the step of allowing a new self to emerge.

People who succeed in forgiving an unforgivable injury have gone through a conversion. Perhaps they have been forced to accept that some of their core beliefs — such as the belief in a just world — were incorrect and need to be re-examined. Perhaps, through the process of forgiving another person, they have come to realize that they, too, are capable of perpetrating hurt or harm on another, and they become more compassionate out of deeper self-understanding which leads to a deeper understanding of others.

At the end of a long journey, a traveler might unpack his suitcase, do the laundry, read the mail, and get mentally prepared to go back to work. Or he might pack his bags and set off on another trip the next day. But it will be a different trip. The point is, when the journey is over, life begins again.

For the forgiver, life begins again as well. Whatever he chooses to do, it will be a time when his new beliefs gathered along the journey to forgiveness are consolidated and tested. So many fundamental changes have happened that he will not ever be able to go back and retrace his steps. It is one of life’s paradoxical gifts that the end of the process of forgiving is a beginning, a second chance. If nothing can ever be the same, this time around it can be even better.

Most people believe what they have always believed. Ideas about criminals, poverty, deserving and undeserving victims, God, wealth, love, religion, good and bad luck — all these ideas take seed early in life and finally become rooted as the foundation of your concept of the world. Information that enters your perception is filtered through your beliefs until it fits nicely into your long-established understanding of how things work. People see what they already believe, and they believe what they think they see.

No one wants the security of his beliefs to be tampered with, of course, especially when the tampering is against his will and results in terrible pain. Yet once beliefs and conceptions are shattered, an opportunity awaits. He has been given a chance to restructure his very basic beliefs about life itself. Who controls things? How much power do we really have? Do some people deserve to be hurt, while others do not? The unharmed never have to face such serious challenges to their assumptions. Forgivers do; and through the process of forgiving, they find and create new answers that, in a way, make them new people. While most people would not wish this upon themselves, it is one of life’s ways of giving people a second chance. To be wounded in this way is, strangely, to be given a gift.

This gift is the invitation to be a co-creator of the world. While it is dangerous to make generalizations about what Unitarian Universalists believe, I think I can safely say that U.U.’s tend to believe that people can participate in the ongoing creation of the world, that we can change who we are, and that we are called upon to make the world a better place than we found it. And so, as forgivers, we have the opportunity not only to participate in re-creating ourselves and our understanding of the way things are, but also, if we choose to do so from the powerful position we have established as forgivers, we can help to make the world itself a place of greater compassion, understanding and healing.

People who have been grievously injured or psychically wounded can get stuck in their woundedness, and can form their whole identity around an understanding of themselves as someone who has been wronged. Such people are likely to repeat the injury that was done to them against other people. People who were abandoned may abandon others. People who were lied to tend to lie to others. Those who were abused often become abusers.

But a person who moves through the stages of forgiveness, reclaims her personal power, and emerges from the experience changed can be an agent for the change and healing and transformation of the world. She has become a dry stick given one more chance by the whims of swamp water — a bough that still could take root, sprout, branch out, bud — make of her life a breathing palace of leaves.

Amen.

A Litany of Atonement

For remaining silent when a single voice would have made a difference