Why we forgive

This bit of savvy wisdom is from the book From Age-ing to Sage-ing, a book that my friend Mel Claytor has been reading:

When I refuse to forgive someone who has wronged me, I mobilize my own inner criminal justice system to punish the offender. As judge and jury, I sentence the person to a long prison term without parole and incarcerate him in a prison that I construct from the bricks and mortar of a hardened heart.

Now as Jailer and warden, I must spend as much time in prison as the prisoner I am guarding. All the energy that I put into maintaining the prison system comes out of my energy budget. From this point of view, bearing a grudge is very costly, because long-held feelings of anger, resentment, and fear drain my energy and imprison my vitality and creativity.

In most cases, we don’t forgive because we feel that the offending party deserves to learn a lesson, and we arrogate unto ourselves the task of being the instrument of instruction. In our innermost heart, we say, ‘How can I forgive him if he hasn’t shown regret, learned his lesson, and made restitution?’. But as our experience demonstrates, the wronging party usually does not apologize. As anger etches its corrosive mark on our soul, we carry an emotional voucher wherever we go that reads, ‘Accounts receivable’. With our vindictiveness anchored in the past, fixated on slights, ouches, and resentments, we may wait fifty years to collect our due from ex-spouses, business partners, and family members – often to no avail. Imagine how many people and nations exist in this state, waiting to collect their unpaid bills! That’s why the bible proclaims that after seven years comes the Sabbatical Year, in which there is a remission of debt – not just financial, but emotional was well.

The issue of forgiveness has another dimension that we are normally loath to examine. We often fail to account for the role that we unconsciously play in creating dysfunctional relationships and situations. All too often, we don’t ask ourselves, "How did my hidden agenda – my expectations, unacknowledged needs, and unresolved emotional conflicts – lead to my getting hurt?" We cannot forgive the offending party as long as we have not taken responsibility for our own contribution to the misunderstanding. By portraying ourselves as victims, we avoid dealing with the pain that we unconsciously inflict on ourselves. Forgiving another’s deed against us requires forgiving ourselves for our complicity in the affair.

I recently blew up at a friend and co-worker for taking back control of a project he had delegated to me. It took us about 3 hours to do the post-mortem on our conflict. We each had unconscious motivations that took awhile to figure out. It was work worth doing.