Forgiveness

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of forgiveness lately. When do we forgive? How do we forgive? How often do we forgive? Can we forget once we forgive? Does forgiveness imply being free from consequences? The major religions have spent time talking about forgiveness; one holy man suggests that people "sin no more", but also to forgive "seventy times seven". Not being an adherent of any of the major religions I have had to formulate my own take on forgiveness.

To me, forgiveness is the process whereby we "set at naught" a harmful action that someone has taken against us or against someone that we care about in order to provide a "second chance" to repair the relationship. That means acting as if the harmful action had not taken place when interacting with that other person. That is the external manifestation of forgiveness, a benefit to the person who is in need of forgiveness. That's the easy part. The difficult part is to mentally treat the offender as if the offense had not happened, getting rid of any anger and resentment that the offense had caused. This is a benefit to the forgiver as well; carrying around a lot of resentment and anger cannot be healthy.

In my opinion forgiveness cannot be truly offered if remorse is not present. I'm defining remorse as an honest recognition of the wrongness of the offending action and a pledge to discontinue those actions. If you "forgive" someone who has no remorse for their harmful actions, you are not forgiving them, i.e. offering them an opportunity to heal the rift in your relationship, you are merely enabling them, giving them cover to continue their hurtful actions. A saying that I have heard several times recently is "I forgive, but I don't forget". This gets right to the heart of the matter. I can forgive you if I believe that you are remorseful, but by remembering the offense I protect myself by not allowing a continual cycle of offense/forgive/re-offend. By not forgetting I allow myself to see a pattern if one occurs.

I am proposing no "etched in stone" rule, or suggesting that only one "second chance" should be offered. Every situation is different. In my own life I do not require an apology from those who have wronged me, only that the harmful actions, those things that have caused a need for forgiveness, cease.

We all make mistakes. We all do and say things that cannot be undone or unsaid. If a person is truly remorseful and has truly embarked on a new path, then we should recognize a genuine change. Forgiveness is a way to heal past hurts, but it shouldn't be a way to allow those who would harm us to continue their harm.