You can’t forgive people unless you know this…
False ideas surrounding our desire for justice
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The problem with Justice is that it needs to be Just, and there’s always, in every narrative, a crack in the wall that lets out this little lie or deviation from the truth which becomes how we define our new operating model.
Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey can’t escape. Not even beloved Bill Cosby is protected any longer. This isn’t the 90’s where we pretended to be evolved, but still allowed the powers that be to do as they pleased. This isn’t the 2000’s and 2010's where we felt better because we voted for the minority candidate to be President. No, this is 2018, and we don’t care if you’re Matt Lauer, Jeffrey Tambor or Al Franken, if you’re an abuser, harasser or pervert, you’re going down and fast. Gone are the days of quiet tabloids. You better be clean or you’re out.
So, good on you, America. Hopefully soon you get to our other vices like materialism, nationalism, militarism, consumptionism and instagramism (my commentary to come later). My beef is with the person that takes the righteous justice of this movement and adopts as their creed that justice is defined as
the destruction of the person that wronged me.
I’ve increasingly seen posts on social media and editorial articles promoting the progression of the mind beyond forgiveness. Forgiveness, to them is weakness, meekness, and permission. It’s all about nurturing the victimizer and forcing the victim into further demise. To forgive is a spiritual platitude that postures as a good deed. Well, I don’t need a good deed. I need vengeance, I need my anger, I need my recompense.
This is all silly, and here’s a perfect example of the silliness. I see comments on refusing to forgive being “brave” and that the author is “finally speaking out”.
What people fail to understand is that forgiveness has anger, forgiveness has justice, forgiveness has recompense. Even the person most known for teaching the message himself, Jesus, was further used as an example by the Apostle Paul. He says,
God didn’t forgive you just because everything was ok and bygones are bygones. Rather, God forgave you in his sacrifice.
There was recompense. Justice served. Self-sacrifice by someone else. Christian philosophy teaches that the guilty cannot be set free and the innocent can not be condemned.
Forgiveness doesn’t let go, say ok, act with leniency, allow or hide wrong doing. What we find instead is that forgiveness hates evil, it refuses to allow for it, it opens it and exposes it, it calls it out honestly and publicly. Forgiveness is brutal. Forgiveness is painful.
Why? Because prison holds a bad guy. Losing a job over harassment removes a bad guy from your general area. Vengeance justifies in your mind, the right to remain in the bondage that the bad guy put you in. Grudges force you to relive his pain and lose experiencing the beauty of life. Forgiveness is so much more powerful.
And that’s because forgiveness is more powerful than prison.
Here’s an illustration. There is a large building in the woods. There’s one rule to get in. You must be dry and clean. Any moisture in the building could damage it, destroying the only safe structure anywhere in the region. Outside is a constant torrential downpour causing mudslides, filth, sicknesses and potential other dangers. Everyone on the outside wants to get in. They beat the doors and widows.
Now in the wrong idea of forgiveness, you’d say, forgive them and let them in. Well, that would only ruin your life. The mud and water would destroy everything. However, to leave them outside, we must live with the constant threat of their continued violence against the building. We see their faces everyday. We hear their screams. So what do we do?
Enter the true forgiveness. The building provides a multilevel tent structure in front of the entrance. That structure allows any wet, dirty individual to step out of the downpour. Segment one, rain is not hitting you. Segment two, remove your clothes. Segment three, shower off the dirt. Segment five, enter a dry area where new clothes are given. Segment six, be completely examined for presence of any remaining water or dirt. Final stage, step into the building.
That tent was forgiveness. It was the path to the destruction of all that threatened the building and haunted you.
When someone enters your forgiveness path, look at all that needed to happen. They were removed from threatening you any longer at the doors and windows (job loss, prison). Then they had to submit to a process. They couldn’t just go in and track their evil all over your life again. They are stripped naked, admitted their wrongs. They are purged of their broken mindset through counseling, training, penance, practice. They are examined. They are forced to put on acceptable standards of living and new ideas how to treat people.
Do you see how true forgiveness does to the person that wronged you all things your anger and vengeance craved? Can you see how true forgiveness is still justice? It’s still recompense and punishment?
Again I think of the religious models of middle eastern thought. In Islam, you are forgiven, but must submit to Allah. Judiasm demands washing, cleansing and fasting. Christians are baptized symbolizing the killing of all that the old unforgiven person did and desired.
We cannot become a people that refuse to forgive. It won’t give us peace. It won’t bring us closer to happiness. It won’t rid the world of evil. Only true forgiveness brings true justice.
What is it you have to know to be able to forgive people?
It’s two things really.
One, forgiveness doesn’t permit or condone the wrong forcing you to live with or “get over” your pain.
Two, forgiveness still allows justice to be served, but it releases the victim and the victimizer from their prisons of brokeness so that rebirth can happen.
