Is Forgiveness For Real?
Everyone seems to be in favor of forgiveness as an abstract religious value, but this week we're exploring how it might be realized in practical ways for individuals, communities, and even nations. As we read Desmond Tutu's book, No Future Without Forgiveness, we may marvel at how South Africans involved in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission were able to forgive the agents of great suffering, but are we really ready to let the guilty go free in our own lives? How do we balance justice with forgiveness? Do we who have accepted the divine gift of grace have an added responsibility (or incentive) to further the cause of forgiveness in the world? Can the TRC model of resotrative, rather than retributive justice work in America?
Suggested readings:
Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness, Chapter 2 and 4
Suggested readings:
Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness, Chapter 2 and 4
posted by Living the Leap at 11:55 AM
3 Comments:
Forgiveness is a loaded word, however there's no doubt that talking about things, like in South Africa's TRC (or to your shrink) helps you make peace with what happened.
I'm Sam's dad. Here's a poem I wrote about forgiveness. Sometimes we generously say we forgive. Yet would we take a bath with those we have sinned against or who have sinned against us? That's a sobering question.
Standing in the Middle of My Life
Down this road above my Mississippi,
along Lake Pepin, I have often walked
but never seen what I have seen today.
Down the steep bank through sumac reds
and past the ash and willow yellows,
impossibly swimming in cold October water
were all the people I can't forgive
and all I fear who can't forgive me.
And they all were happy, wet with forgiveness,
all glad to be wearing the same robe of water.
They were all one and all was forgiving.
But how could I trust their faces
calling me into the same water they swam in?
How could I let their water flow over me?
How can forgiving and being forgiven be the same?
How can both cover me as it covers them
as is the nature of water?
How could I have stood and just watched?
Sam's Dad again. I probably shouldn't write twice on the same question but here goes. There is no future without forgiveness—that's not an idea.
What the Dream Said
The road is made of paper.
And the footprints are of ink.
There is disaster all the way to the horizon.
All is destruction.
If we don't breathe love like air,
there will be no future.
I don't know if we can forgive someone we don't love. I don't know if we can love someone we feel we should forgive unless we know with Bonhoeffer that the Christ in this other is bigger than the Christ in me. If the center of my life isn't outside myself (Bonhoeffer again) what in hell or on earth is my Christianity? If my Christianity isn't Christ and breathing Christ what in heaven's name am I doing in church—waiting for lightning to strike??
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