Let me tell you why I think forgiveness is overrated. When your life has been rocked by a wicked injustice, well-meaning friends, clergy and therapists will inevitably retrieve from their tattered dog-eared bibles, snappy quote books or psych 101 texts how you really need to embrace forgiveness to move on. And I want to say, Puhleeze spare me that term. It is far too imprecise and unfulfilling.
The concept of forgiveness has surfaced lately with people ranging from Chris Buckley to Elizabeth Edwards.
First, the New York Times excerpted Chris Buckley's book about his famous parents. What we learned is that socialite Patricia Buckley was a woman so drunk with her self-importance that she would spit out torrents of stinging barbs with impunity leaving her son doused with emotional debris. His last words at her deathbed were, you guessed it, "I forgive you."
Would those have been your last words?
Instead of forgiving her, wouldn't it have been far more fulfilling for him to have said . "Mommy dearest. You were a selfish bitch who valued your friends more than me. And where are they now? Not at your bedside. Maybe they're lunching somewhere just as you did during my college graduation when I couldn't find Mommy and Poppy anywhere. What rejection. Oh and by the way, that insensitive remark you said about a Kennedy relative in front of your granddaughter's best friend who is a member of that family is bad form. A class act would have taken a page from Jackie Kennedy who wisely said, "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much.' Ta ta."
What is the point of Chris Buckley forgiving his mother since she has made no effort to be forgiven. Which is my problem with this concept that is tossed around like a Frisbee. You can accept behavior, learn from it, not repeat it and move on without forgiving.
There is a reason that the Ten Commandments doth say, Honor thy parents. Notice the omission of the word love. There's a reason. As great rabbis have noted, love has to be earned. Did Jesus really mean turn the other cheek and be a doormat?
I have learned by also having a selfish mother that your parents teach you who you want to be and not be. As someone who has a deep abiding faith in God, I accepted the destiny of my childhood and learned to find the lessons in it. I am now the mother I always wanted and my son has a relationship with me based on trust not disappointment. That is the victory. I don't need to say I forgive her. I don't. I call her, take care of her, and see her but not as often as she would like in her older age.
Don't you think there has to be consequences to bad behavior?
Elizabeth Edwards now has a book called Resilience where she admits she wanted to throw up when she learned of her husband's affair with Rielle Hunter. But she didn't want to throw him out. They had built a life together and she wanted to protect her young family - especially since her options were few considering her terminal illness. The pain of betrayal surely was as bad as any medical one. Adding salt to the wounds, he wasn't as honest with all the details of the affair early on.
She learned to forgive him she writes for the little moments that were meaningful to her. "I lie in bed, circles under my eyes, my sparse hair sticking in too many directions and he looks at me as if I am the most beautiful woman," she says.
I bet he does. Now. The man has been publically shamed, his career shattered and his only refuge really his family. Most likely Elizabeth, who has been battling cancer for some time, had the same symptoms another time. But perhaps John Edwards has worked harder on being forgiven.
Maybe he went through the process where he acknowledged his mistake, asked what he could do to make reparations to the soul and allowed her to express and confront her rage without slinking away. This is forgiveness that is earned. It is opening the door to a new beginning.
In Kerry Kennedy's book, Speak Truth To Power, which chronicled how human rights activists survived hardships, Archbishop Desmond Tutu says, "We should not be scared with being confrontational, of facing people with the wrong that they have done. Forgiving doesn't mean pretending things aren't as they really are. Forgiveness is the recognition that ghastliness has happened. And forgiveness doesn't mean trying to paper over the cracks, which is what people do when they say, 'Let bygones be bygones.' Because they will not. They have an incredible capacity for always returning to haunt you. Forgiveness means that the wronged and the culprits of those wrongs acknowledge that something happened. And there is necessarily a measure of confrontation. Then once the culprit says, 'I am sorry," the wronged person is under obligation to forgive.'"
And yes, the forgiveness can then be a release.
I understand why people say you have to learn to forgive. The assumption is that if you don't, you hold on to anger which poisons your spirit - and even impacts your health. It's the terminology I have a problem with. Words have power.
Forgiving people for little flaws is part of loving and also part of recognizing the human experience. It's easy to overlook and understand why someone may say an unkind word in a moment of haste, forgets a birthday or even becomes emotionally messy or needy in certain situations These are the cases when you don't need the apology. But when the wounds cut so deep into your psyche or are forever life-altering, letting go doesn't have to be defined by the word forgiveness.
In my own life, my husband's CFO turned out to be a diabolical, duplicitous lying thief who illegally stole our life savings as well as the livelihoods of over 100 people. I will never forgive him for the anguish and betrayal. Instead, I have to accept and identify that this has been done and focus on what I still have and can have. My faith has helped a great deal. However, the word "forgive" makes me ill. The words "accept God's plan" sets me free as does letting go and realizing he has his destiny, I have mine.
Does saying the word, "I forgive," mean that the person has no sway on you anymore and you have turned from being powerless to powerful? If it does, then you are lucky. For me, forgiveness requires some effort on the culprit of the injustice. People need to be accountable for their life-altering behavior. Because even if you say you forgive, you never forget. Accepting your destiny, learning the lessons from choices, making a new plan, giving love and still finding many ways to squeeze out joy with what you have is what gives me a sense of power. Not saying I forgive someone who has not made any effort to be worthy of it.