Transgressions and Time: Forgiveness as a survivor’s skill

Someone once told me that forgiveness is like the ringing of a church bell. The pain of wrongdoing goes in waves like the volume of the bell’s ringing: the first toll is the loudest and most painful, and every time after that the sound diminishes until it’s no more than a whisper in the back of your mind.

As a Christian, I struggle with forgiveness. Not the action of forgiveness, but whether or not it’s actually possible. How can I, as an individual with a working brain, look at my transgressors and say “I forgive you”? How is it possible to look at someone that has wronged you and say_”It’s ok–I forgive you.”_

Even more than the issue of forgiving others, I struggle with the idea of others forgiving me for my own misdeeds. I may not have a rap sheet, but I’ve still done my fair share of “bad things”. Some of my actions were just downright petty, some of them were cruel, some of them were sins of pride and arrogance (ok, most of them were sins of pride and arrogance). How can other people forgive me when I find the action of forgiveness so difficult? When does the statute of limitations run out on a sin?

I’ve been wronged in the past and have had to learn how to live as a victim, then as a survivor (guess which one took more time and effort?). I’ve struggled to at least begin the process of forgiveness with the people who forced those lessons on me. I’ve learned that forgiveness isn’t forgetfulness–that forgiving someone doesn’t mean that you forget their actions, but that you are willing to move _past_ those actions and resume a new relationship of some sort with the transgressor.

Forgiveness is one of the most gracious acts that an individual can perform. It’s also one of the most difficult and it takes a lifetime to practice and learn. At the ripe old age of 27, I’m less than a novice at it. I’ve learned, in this short lifetime, that forgiveness is a lot like love: it’s necessary but it takes a lot of work. It’s an ongoing process that requires work and self-consciousness.

How do we as a community, forgive transgressors? As a community, the transgressor comes back into the community as a different individual with an altered history, knowing that the community-at-large has a different perception of them. In legal terms, forgiveness means that your debt is paid, whether that debt is monetary or action-oriented. In personal terms, it means that your past actions are no longer a present concern. Again, forgiveness doesn’t require amnesia, but it _does_ require a willingness to look past an individual’s mistakes and to look at the present and future relationship with an individual. It requires us, as a group to say “You’ve done wrong, but your time has been served.” When a community forgives, that community can move on, changed, but whole.

I’ve been asked if I can forgive a person who has abused me, and I always answer yes. I may never be able to have them over for dinner, or be able to engage in a joking conversation with them about the past (”Hey, remember that time in the broom closet?”), but I have to forgive them in order to get on with my own life. In forgiving them for the crimes they committed against me, I allow both of us to go on. Withholding forgiveness keeps me in victim mode–I can’t get past what’s been done. Granting forgiveness gives me the ability to call myself a survivor. Will I ever forget? No, but I don’t have to. I have to forgive to survive.

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Published:
2.21.06 / 1pm
Category:
Life, Spirituality