Forgiving the Unforgivable

Religious teachings say that you have to forgive each other.  Turn the other cheek.  From our earliest childhood memories, our parents were telling us that we have to forgive our siblings when they hurt us or break our things.  Forgive and forget.  To hold a grudge will get you shunned and even ridiculed by others in society, “Ah just get over it.  They said they were sorry.”  We get this huge guilt complex dumped on us from all directions.  We are expected to forgive everyone no matter what they do and no matter what their motivation was for doing it.  Often, people aren’t even sorry that they have caused us pain and sorrow, yet we still have to offer up our forgiveness anyway.  To refuse to forgive someone is often considered a greater sin then whatever the original crime was.  But what about big stuff like infidelity, murder, kidnapping, and rape?  What about the crimes of one society against another, like slavery, genocide, or destroying all of the art and history books of the losing team in a war?  How do you forgive the really bad stuff and what if deep down in your most private heart you really don’t forgive them?  Then what?

I tell you this, you are human, a perfectly natural normal human being.  Do not treat yourself like you are the bad guy because you are honest with yourself and you refuse to live the lie of a forgiveness that you do not feel.  If someone has committed a crime against your body, a crime against your heart, or a crime against your soul, you have a natural right to feel fear, anger, resentment, outrage and whatever else rushes through your heart and mind.  What you do with that anger and rage is one thing, but you have the right to feel what you feel.  Do not lie to yourself and pretend that you do not feel it.  Do not try to force yourself to begin feeling something completely different.  Real forgiveness will come if and when you are ready and not a moment before.  

Does that mean that you are going to let that anger control you?  No!  You already had to suffer through the ugliness of someone else’s behaviors and choices, you should not allow the anger you feel to also rule over your life.  Part of taking back your life and walking a path that is happy and healthy and eventually healing is by controlling what will and will not be allowed to dominate over you.  That’s why our personal freedoms are so vital to our well-being.  A woman who has been raped has every right to hate the man who did it to her and she has the right to forgive him or to not forgive him in her own time.  Until she is ready to forgive, she needs to make sure that the memory of that crime against her body and soul doesn’t rule over her and keep her from moving forward with her own healing, her own life, and her own dreams.  A group of people that are persecuted for their religious beliefs have a right to be angry and to not forgive those who would deny them religious freedom.  However, if they allow that anger to control them, then they are never really free are they?  Feeling anger and living anger are two very different things.  Denying someone the right to feel anger insures that they will live the anger instead.  Therefore, real forgiveness never happens.

Real forgiveness requires time, time to heal, time to forget, time to laugh, time to cry, time to breath deeply, to rebuild, to thrive, and time to detach.  Then and only then can we really forgive each other for the horrible things that we do.  Some things like a broken toy can be forgiven after a day or two.  Other things like infidelity may take months and even years.  Sometimes it never happens.  Something like slavery can take many generations of time and distancing before we can detach enough to fully forgive.  It’s all in perspective and directionally proportional to the amount of pain and psychological damage that was caused.  

It’s naturally easier to forgive someone that appears to be truly sorry for their actions.  It also helps if someone shows signs of trying to make things right again.  Sometimes the person who is sorry isn’t always the one who makes things right again.  One man may rape a woman, but a second man comes along and teaches her again that her body is a sacred and holy temple to be treasured.  That second man makes her healing and forgiveness of the first man easier.  A society who realizes that they have harmed a minority group but then later tries to make it right by educating their children and providing medical care with no strings attached goes a long way to begin the healing process.  

Yes, we are the ones who ultimately benefit the most from being able to forgive those who harm us, but it must be a real forgiveness and not someone else’s dogma thrown in our face.  Forgive those who have harmed you as much as you can in the moment.  Be honest with yourself.  Then forgive yourself for not being able to forgive 100%.  Later when you’ve had some time to heal, forgive them a bit more.  Do not torture yourself with guilt, just allow yourself real honest healing, in real honest time.  If you never forgive them, then so be it.  Perhaps in generations to come, your children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren will forgive them for having hurt you so deeply.  Some things are simply too big to forgive in one lifetime.  I’m sorry that we still do such things to each other.  I’m also sorry that we further complicate the victims’ lives by requiring them to live the lie of forgiveness when there is no possible way for them to ever really feel it.