Forgiveness

We've all been mad at someone, sometime.  Sometimes you look back and get that sinking feeling that you may have overreacted a little bit.  Other times, you look back and feel thankful that you stood up for yourself when someone was being unreasonable or hurting you.  My own relationship with forgiveness has been a long learning process, because often times I held onto a moral conviction that I should forgive people, but confused that with acquiescing to their bad behavior.  Or, that someone should forgive me by acquiescing to my bad behavior.  However, forgiveness is much different than that.  Forgiveness is releasing yourself from negative thoughts, and has nothing to do with behavior at all.

I remember several years ago, before I had children, that I was taking care of my 2-3 year old nephew, who announced that he wanted cookies for lunch.  When I said "no", the temper tantrum ensued, and I was left trying to figure out what to do with the situation - disciplining other people's kids is always a challenge.  In a fit of dumb luck, I happened upon my most successful parenting strategy ever - have compassion for the child, but holding the boundary.  I said "I'm really sorry that you want cookies for lunch, and I know it's hard to not get what you want.  I think you're great, but you still can't have a cookie for lunch".  Much to my surprise, this combination of desperate words worked - my nephew calmed down immediately, and was no longer concerned about having cookies for lunch.  Turns out, he wanted to be soothed in his disappointment much more than feeding his inner Cookie Monster.

What does this story have to do with forgiveness?  I'm promoting the idea that forgiveness doesn't mean letting people walk all over you, or allowing people to get away with poor choices of behavior, but rather releasing them, and yourself, from the burdens of judgement.  It was Gandhi who said "I believe that nonviolence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment.”  I love that Gandhi talked about forgiveness as "manly", and there's great truth here.  To forgive is to claim a power higher than dealing in fear and judgement and revenge, and recognize the power that compassion has over this.  My nephew's disappointment was transformed by compassion for how he felt, and it had nothing to do with his immediate solution for his disappointment (cookies) - we both found a meeting point for something that soothed him much more than a cookie could ever accomplish.  We found love, and that is the basis of forgiveness.

As we all know, Jesus talked about forgiveness a bunch too.  From Matthew 18:21-22
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

What all of this tells me is that we choose which state we decide to live in with the world. We can choose resentment and revenge, based on a fear of self protection, or we can choose to live in a state of forgiveness, based on a connection with the higher power of love to transfrom our relationships.

I have had my opportunities to learn about forgiveness in recent years, and what has come clear to me is that my decision to live in a state of resentment or forgiveness directly relates to what state I live in in general.  Even to this day, I have my good days, and my bad days, but I have learned that whatever esteem I hold for my adversaries I am also opting to plunge myself in as well.  Forgiveness may release others from the negative energy of resentment and hate, but, more importantly, it releases us from that same energy.  If you are someone who believes in the power of love, then all that talk about loving our enemies, and forgiveness, starts to make a little more sense.

Now.. I feel like I've earned my cookie :).