Forgiveness

A Sermon by Seth Carrier – Ministerial Student

Given November 29, 2009

First Church and Parish in Dedham

 

Sometimes, it’s just not that easy to forgive.

 

You’re up for a big promotion at work, you’ve worked your tail off for months, stayed late, worked weekends. And the promotion goes to your boss’s nephew who is clearly less talented and less qualified. The company cheated you out of a promotion that was “rightly” yours.

 

The spouse who mis-treated you for the entire fifty-seven years of your marriage dies, leaving you hurt, angry and alone.

 

Your seventeen-year old son or daughter goes out to the store to get milk, gets in a car accident, and is killed by a drunk driver.

 

Sometimes it is not easy to forgive. Not at all.

 

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There are of course some things that are easier to forgive. Someone bumping into you on the street is usually pretty easy to let go of. If in the process of bumping into you on the street this stranger also bumped your arm, causing you to spill the soda or coffee you were carrying all over your pants, then maybe the anger and frustration takes a little longer to let go of. But on the whole we move forward from these smaller frustrations relatively easily. A week later, the accidental bump on the street is ancient history, long-forgotten.

 

The major grievances, however, can be another story. We can hold on to them for weeks, months, years, and even decades. We all know examples where, either from our own lives or from people we know, the cliché “time heals all wounds” is not always true.

 

I think a big part of the struggle in long-term grievances is that people sometimes mis-understand the nature of forgiveness. We tend to define forgiveness in terms of “forgiving someone.” We hold on to pain, anger, and hurt, and let those feelings live inside us. When we do this we are harming ourselves far more than any past action is harming us. We say “we have not forgiven” the person or persons who harmed us, but in reality we are letting that hurt and pain continue to fester inside us.

 

I used to be really socially awkward as a teenager, and have carried one story in particular with me for almost twenty years. The story, interestingly enough, isn’t about a time I was teased by a peer, but instead involved an interaction with a teacher. The teacher was my music teacher in junior high, Mr. Richter. He started off class one morning by asking if anyone had seen the re-run of “Golden Girls” that had aired the evening before. I raised my hand excitedly, ever eager to please, “I did. I did.” Mr. Ricther said, “Well, there was this funny conversation where a kid was explaining to two of the ‘Golden Girls’ the difference between a dork and a geek, but I don’t remember what he said.” This was no problem, I remembered the exchange clearly, and proceeded to repeat it almost verbatim to the class. When I was done, Mr. Richter said, “well thank you Seth. You know, the reason I brought it up was because when I saw that conversation, it made me think of you.”

 

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Understandably, I was devastated. And I held on to that devastation for a long time afterwards. I remember coming back to that story from time to time in my middle twenties, and dreaming about tracking down Mr. Richter, going to see him, and proceeding to tell him how utterly insensitive he was to make one of his students, a kid he was responsible for, feel that small and insignificant. It took me a long time to let go of that story I was telling myself, and to be present with the hurt and anger I was still feeling. After many years of repeating that story to myself and to others, I finally let it go and began to heal and move forward.

 

According to Dr. Fred Luskin, one of the key struggles I was having with forgiveness was that I had constructed a “grievance story.” Dr. Luskin has done a substantial amount of research on forgiveness as Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project, where he has identified this “holding on” pattern that many of us fall into, where we tell ourselves and others a victim story over and over again. He suggests that the first thing that we need to work on changing if we are to move forward in the grieving process is our grievance story.

 

The problem with grievance stories is that they do not accomplish anything. It is natural in the aftermath of an experience where we are wronged to be angry and hurt, to rehearse the narrative in our minds, and to share the story with others. This needs to happen as part of a grieving and letting go process. If we become bogged down in the story, however, if we continually re-visit the pain and hurt, we don’t move forward. By holding tightly to our grievance stories we give over our personal power to the individual that hurt us, continuing to let past actions dominate our present experience.

 

The Reverend Marilyn Sewell, former minister to the First Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon, and the author of a book entitled “A Little Book on Forgiveness,” offers five principles to follow in the forgiveness process. I believe the third principle she shares is the most crucial. She writes: “Realize that forgiveness is not about the other person – it’s about you.” When we hold on to anger, hurt, pain and resentment, ultimately it ends up eating away at us, not the other person. When I was sitting there for years, reliving that moment in class, it wasn’t Mr. Richter who was struggling and in pain, it was me.

 

Holding on to pain, hurt, anger and resentment over time means that there continues to be pain, hurt, anger and resentment in us over time. If I asked you “how about I give you some pain, hurt, anger and resentment stew for you to hold inside of you for the next ten years?” how many of you would say be jumping up to say “oh, yes, let me have it, me, me, me!” And yet this is exactly what we do when we hold on to and live in our grievance stories. This is exactly what we do when we do not forgive.

 

So, once we’ve identified our grievance story, how do we get un-stuck? The short answer is to create a new story. Dr. Luskin and Reverend Sewell both offer a similar second step, which is to recognize and accept the limitations of a person or situation. I’ll say that again: recognizing and accepting the limitations of a person or situation. Both authors talk about the importance of looking at the reality of a given situation, and seeing how our expectations clashed with what was possible, or with the limited skills and/or personality of the person who caused the hurt. Luskin suggests we use this re-framing of the situation to create a new and different story in our head.

 

To me, this re-framing and re-telling of our stories is the beginning of the healing process. Sewell’s principle #4 is for us is to “Stay with ourselves and our pain. To get under the anger to the hurt and then on down to the sadness and the grief.” It is through re-telling the story, looking at the reality of the situation, and allowing our feelings to come up and out, that we can begin to heal. What neither Luskin nor Sewell articulate, though, is what brings about healing. I believe the missing ingredients are love and compassion.

 

We have been practicing a version of the Buddhist Loving Kindness meditation the past several weeks during the Prayer and Meditation portion of the service. The focus of the meditation is love, and it is love that brings healing and wholeness. Love focused first inward for ourselves, and then outward for those others who may need it.

 

It was quite a surprise to me in the process of writing this sermon when I was asked “Have you forgiven Mr. Richter?” The answer, as it turns out, when I examined it, was no, I had not. I had moved out of my grievance story, I had healed most of the pain and hurt I had carried around for so long, but there is still part of me that is angry and blames him for the hurt he caused me. As I sat there reflecting on this, I thought of our Loving Kindness meditation, and tried to see the pain and hurt that he must have brought to the situation, so much so that he felt the need to take it out on a defenseless student in his care. By opening my heart to him and trying to bring love into my renewed attempt at forgiveness, I have been able to begin the process of truly forgiving him, but I’m still not there yet.

 

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I believe bringing love into the equation opens the door for us to bring compassion as well – both towards ourselves, and towards others. I recently attended an Amnesty International meeting where a presentation was given by a woman who had worked at Amnesty for three years, with her primary assignment being to work on their campaign to abolish the death penalty in the United States. She shared many troubling facts, stories and statistics, but there were also some stories of hope intermingled. Some of the families of murder victims not only forgave the person who committed the murder, but actively sought to prevent the convicted person of being put to death for their crime. Here, here is love and compassion writ large, a beacon of hope. Despite such great tragedy, some of the affected families were able to forgive those who had done wrong.

 

I know of one such story personally, that of my friend Richard Nethercutt, who passed away this past October, and who was a living example of just such radical forgiveness. Thirty years ago, Richard’s daughter was murdered, and he struggled to move on with his life. In his own words, “I kept my daughter's death to myself. I suppressed it. I didn't go through an authentic grieving process.” Richard struggled for years, taking an early retirement from the State Department, and eventually seeking treatment for clinical depression. The man who murdered Richard’s daughter never expressed regret, and Richard struggled to forgive.

 

Richard eventually came to forgiveness by working with men from similar circumstances as his daughter’s murderer. At the suggestion of his pastor, he became part of a prison Bible fellowship program, and from there found his way to the Alternatives to Violence Project, an organization that offers weekend-long experiential workshops to incarcerated people, helping them learn alternative responses to conflict besides violence. It was in these settings that Richard was able to finally truly let go of his grievances, heal, and move into forgiveness. He never explicitly stated this to me, but from what he shared it sounds to me like working with incarcerated people, and hearing their stories, learning about their struggles and gaining fist-hand knowledge of their humanity, helped him finally bring love, healing and compassion into his forgiveness process. Richard volunteered for over fifteen years with the Alternatives to Violence Project, facilitating weekend-long workshops despite his failing health right up until the time he passed. He was an amazing man.

 

There are, of course, many powerful stories of forgiveness in the larger world. The attempt to reach for truth and forgiveness that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa undertook in trying to find healing for their country around the issues of apartheid was tremendous. Despite initial strenuous objections that justice was the thing most needed, the leadership of South Africa moved forward with the Commission, and began the process of true healing. There is still debate there among some who feel justice was not served, but the decision was made to attempt healing and reconciliation, and the process was remarkably successful.

 

Airing the truth of the situation, and bringing an intention of reconciliation, helped move the country forward, and kept them from falling into a national grievance story. While the stories of apartheid will continue to be told, as it is an important history, many of the necessary steps towards healing have begun. The nation has stated and acted on its intention to try and move from a place of woundedness towards a place not of forgetting, but of healing.

 

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Forgiveness of significant hurt and pain is a process that takes time. It has been my experience that it can be aided by a reflective or spiritual practice, such as the Loving -Kindness meditation we have been doing together the past several weeks. Indeed, Luskin and Sewell both talk about spiritual practices as practical steps towards helping achieve forgiveness. Both also talk about the importance of intention. All the practice in the world won’t help you if you do not have the desire to forgive. And I would venture we should, ultimately, have the desire to forgive, if not for altruistic reasons, then for selfish ones. For lack of forgiveness, living in the pain and hurt of the grievance story, only hurts our own spirits over time. Every inch of you that is filled with pain and hurt is an inch that cannot be filled with love and joy.

 

As we saw in our opening words, if there is to be peace in the world, there must be peace in our hearts. Forgiving, letting go of grievances and grudges, moving towards healing and wholeness, is one way to bring greater peace to your heart. Forgiveness of major grievances, however, is not an easy thing; if it were as easy as following four simple steps, we would all have let go and moved on long ago. While we may hope and desire to have peace in our hearts, just wishing so, or even setting the intention to forgive, does not make it happen. Forgiveness takes time, and it can be a struggle, even for the great spiritual masters, and certainly for us regular human beings. I believe having peace in your heart a worthy goal to aspire towards, even if the journey may sometimes be a long and arduous one.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”

 

May we go from this place full of the love we need to heal the wounds in our own souls, knowing we have the support of a loving community. May we build bridges, instead of fences. May we find forgiveness for others. And most importantly, may we find forgiveness for our own sake, so that we can live more in love, and have greater peace in our hearts.