Making Time to Forgive

You'll note that it's been over a month since my last blog entry. Between spring break, Women's Week on campus (immediately following spring break), and the usual mad dash toward the end of the semester, it's been a hectic month.

Today, however, with Easter on the immediate horizon, I'm making time to think about the nature of forgiveness. Several months ago I met a woman who'd lost a child as the result of a violent crime, and she told me how much she'd learned from that experience. For instance: you're going to have to forgive a lot of people, she said--not only the ones who hurt your child, but the ones who hurt you. They do this by directing conversation away from your grief (in order to avoid creating uncomfortable moments for themselves), or by ignoring you completely because they don't know what to say. Dealing with the death of her child was horrific, of course, but dealing with the requirements of her new life--that was downright exhausting, she said.

Forgiveness takes more time (and much more energy) than writing someone off; you have to forgive all over again whenever you think about the wrongs people have done to you. Perhaps that's why human beings tend to be quick to anger and slow to mercy. Whenever he's faced with someone's anger, my dad likes to say "They'll get over it. If they don't, they're going to be mad for a long, long time." And we do get over it, most of the time. We cool off. Anger is short-lived and very efficient in relieving the pressure of a moment. But that's about all it can accomplish. Held in place, it turns into a grudge--anger that accomplishes absolutely nothing. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is the choice to clear away the anger and put good will in its place, even when that's not what you feel like doing. Especially when that's not what you feel like doing. And it accomplishes much more than anger ever will.

Earlier this week, one of my students was telling the story of how her family had reached out to help a homeless man--who had then gone on to steal from her family, rather than showing gratitude for their help. "That's why we don't help homeless people anymore," she said. "You just can't trust them." It's a logical conclusion (albeit overgeneralized), but it's based in anger. Imagine how many others might be helped by that family's choice to forgive one person's selfishness.

This morning I was thinking about someone I find it very hard to forgive, but I stopped myself from running (yet again) through the catalog of his wrongdoings. I told myself to let it go and hope he'd find a way to be at peace with himself. I decided to listen to what I'd told my student: "You did the right thing. How someone responds to that has nothing to do with you--that's his choice. But if you use his behavior as an excuse to stop doing the right thing, then his choice becomes your choice."

My job in this world is to try to do the right thing more often than not--and to take the time to forgive the people who might keep me from doing that. It's hard to remember but absolutely true that forgiveness isn't something you do for the person who's done you wrong. You do it to empower yourself. You do it to change the world.