Letting Go: Wrestling with Forgiveness
September 16, 2007 The Reverend Anne Felton Hines
I think my favorite story in Jewish Scripture is the story of Jonah. Not only is he the only Hebrew prophet who was successful, according to author Michael Strassfeld – actually causing people to change; but he’s also just so easy to identify with!
First of all, when God calls on him to go to Ninevah and warn the people that they’ll be destroyed if they don’t change their evil ways, Jonah tries to hide from God by hopping the first boat out of town going in the opposite direction! Who among us wouldn’t do the very same thing? We know what happens to people who say they’ve heard the voice of God, and that the world will come to an end if we don’t repent! At the very least they’re ridiculed, and sometimes they’re even locked up.
And then, when Jonah finally does acquiesce – which he does only because God has thrown him into the belly of a “big fish!” – he becomes outraged when God has the audacity to actually save the people of Ninevah! This is where I really identify with Jonah.
For you see, Jonah doesn’t believe that the people deserve to be saved just because they “renounced their evil ways,” and began praying to God for forgiveness and mercy. He says to God with great indignation: “…isn’t this what I said would happen…? …I knew you were a tender, compassionate God, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, who relents about inflicting disaster.” Even by the end of the story, Jonah still doesn’t seem to get it. He even begs God to take away his life, feeling it’s not worth living when evil people can be saved so quickly – with no tests to make sure they’re serious!
Reminds me of all those times when I was a kid, and would get furious because my mother would let my younger brother have dessert after only partially cleaning his plate, or let him go somewhere before he’d tidied his room. I was always sure that my younger brother was receiving better treatment than the rest of us – and certainly better treatment than he deserved! As far as I was concerned, Mom was much too “tender and compassionate!”
Oh yes…I definitely identify with Jonah!
His story is re-told in synagogues around the world at this time of year - between the high holy days of Rosh ha-Shana and Yom Kippur – the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement. These ten days, known as the Days of Awe, are a time when Jews are to reflect honestly upon their lives, and take whatever steps necessary to seek reconciliation of broken relationships. They are called to make amends to those they may have harmed, and at the same time, to offer forgiveness to those who may have harmed them. Jonah ran from witnessing the immense compassion and mercy of his God; but Jews are called at each new year to remember and trust that compassion, and to emulate it.
Ironically, this year Rosh ha-Shana and Yom Kippur coincide with the high holy days in the Muslim faith, Ramadan, which continue for a full month. And ironically, both traditions call on their followers to use this time to focus on compassion and reconciliation, among other things. The tragic reality, however, is that Jews and Muslims follow these practices dutifully year after year, yet cannot seem to open their hearts to one another to create a lasting peace between them.
I recently read a novel by Richard North Patterson called Exile, in which an American Jewish lawyer defends a Palestinian woman accused of murdering Israel’s Prime Minister. The story made clear the horror and the poignancy of people’s stories on both sides of the conflict; yet except for small groups of citizens trying in vain to heal the wounds of hatred, nothing is done to allow people to share those stories and reach some deeper understanding.
And so the wars rage on.
But we should not be surprised by that; think of how difficult it is for most of us to let go of the much smaller hurts and resentments we harbor in our own personal lives.
When reminiscing about the terrible temper tantrums my son used to throw as a child, my father mentioned to me that when I was a child, I had what he called a “militant anger.” Me? I said. Oh yes, he replied; you could work yourself into quite a fury.
As I grew older, of course, I learned to control that fury – most of the time, at least. But that didn’t mean I learned to deal with the anger. And as you may recall from a sermon I delivered a year ago, when my father lay dying in a hospital six years ago, I still held so much anger towards him that I could not bring myself to tell him I loved him – something that still today fills me with sorrow. How much better it would have been had I been able to look at him with compassion, and let go of the resentment I’d clutched so tightly for so many years.
The Dalai Lama, leader of Tibetan Buddhism, tells us that, “Once our mind is dominated by anger, it becomes almost mad. We can’t make right decisions, and we can’t see reality.” My mind was “dominated by anger” even at my father’s most vulnerable moment, and it profoundly distorted my behavior.
Jody Foster stars in a new movie that just opened this week, called The Brave One, in which she portrays a young woman who decides to seek revenge after being brutally attacked. I haven’t seen the film, but I saw Ms. Foster interviewed on The Daily Show. And while she said that she’s opposed to private citizens owning guns, she acknowledged how powerful it felt to hold one, and that indeed, revenge felt pretty darn good.
But revenge doesn’t take bravery; it is, in fact, the easy way out. We have seen far too many instances of the disastrous results of revenge – from individual citizens such as Jody Foster’s character turning to self-righteous violence; to tribal or religious wars such as in Rwanda, Darfur, Ireland and Israel; to suicide attacks around the globe by religious fundamentalists. And of course, there’s our own wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, grounded supposedly in the high ideals of freedom and democracy, but really initially supported out of a sense of fear & revenge for the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
And where has any of these wars taken us? Not to a greater peace; not to a greater understanding of our enemies; not to a safer world. Only to more violence, hatred, and heartbreak. They have not represented bravery on the part of the leaders making the decisions to go to war – only fear.
The Dalai Lama reminds us that “All human beings are the same – made of human flesh, bones and blood. We all want happiness and we all want to avoid suffering …. this arguing with each other, cheating each other, suppressing each other, is of no use.
“Though we may regard someone as an enemy,” he says, “on a deeper level an enemy is also a human being, also wants happiness, and has the right to be happy.”
Imagine believing that those we feel have hurt us – be they an ex-spouse, a parent, a friend – those we refer to as “jerks” or worse - have the right to be happy, just as we do! Even more difficult, imagine the idea that someone who has committed a horrific act, on a large scale, is a human being – part of our human family – and “has the right to be happy.” It seems almost impossible – and yet some people are able to embrace that ideal.
Almost a year ago, a man broke into a small Amish school in Pennsylvania and killed five of the students – all girls. He then shot and killed himself. It was a horrifying crime, and certainly unexpected in such a peaceful community. What we are accustomed to seeing after such an event is a call for so-called “justice” – for retaliation of some sort; it’s the prime reason we have the death penalty. Nor is it unusual for even the family of the killer to receive threats of retaliation, and be forever scarred.
But that is not what we witnessed in this event. Almost immediately after the tragedy occurred, members of the Amish community spoke only of compassion for the perpetrator of the crime. The grandfather of one of the victims said, “We must not think evil of this man.” And another man told CNN, "I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way, but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts.”
And that’s exactly what happened: The Amish visited the family of the gunman and offered them forgiveness and comfort.
The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has written that “understanding and love aren’t two things, but just one. When you understand, you can’t help but love….When you love, you naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.”
He tells of a time during the Vietnam War when a man interrupted his lecture about the war, accusing him of not caring about his own people in Vietnam. Nhat Hanh breathed deeply for a moment and then responded in a calm and loving voice. But afterwards, he confided to a friend how upsetting the confrontation had been, and the energy it had taken for him to let go of his anger at the man, and reach out with kindness.
It is a difficult practice of letting go that we must embark on if we are to move through our angers and resentments, our fears and distrust. Nhat Hanh suggests imagining a pebble thrown into a river. As it sinks through the water effortlessly, detached from everything, it finally reaches the bottom – “the point of perfect rest.”
We must be that people, letting go of our anger so that we can land at “perfect rest.” If we don’t, we run the risk of “becoming emotionally paralyzed by a bitterness that eats at our soul like a cancer,” as one person put it. Instead of opening our hearts to understanding and compassion, we nurture our hurt and anger, and it becomes stronger.
After the attacks of 9/11, someone sent me a story about a Native American grandfather talking to his grandson about his feelings of anger. The grandfather said to the boy, “I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one.”
The grandson asked, “Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?”
The grandfather answered, “The one I feed.”
Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting the wrong that has been done; it doesn’t mean burying our anger and hurt. But it does require that we not feed the memory or the anger – that we not cling to it as a child clings to his or her security blanket.
In his new book called Giving, Bill Clinton talks about one of the most revered examples of forgiveness and reconciliation, Nelson Mandela. Clinton reminds us that after all those years of unjust imprisonment, Mandela invited his jailers to his inauguration as President of South Africa, put former apartheid supporters in his Cabinet, and set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Says Clinton, “Mandela decided that the only way to face the future freely was to let go of the past.”
And that is what we each must do, too, if we are to face our futures freely: let go of the hurts of our past, and move forward in love and compassion. And the only way I know how to do this is to try to understand the humanity – the hurts and fears and dreams – of those who have caused us, or those we love, harm.
In the Jewish and Islamic traditions, this is the time of year when we are to repair broken relationships – with God, with other human beings, and with our selves. But I would suggest that we not practice this reconciliation only once a year, but continuously, day after day, lest our wounds of anger fester and prevent us from speaking our words of love when they are needed.
Let us open our hearts ever wider so that we, too, can be “tender and compassionate, slow to anger, and rich in faithful love.” And may our compassion and love radiate beyond ourselves to a broken world that yearns for healing. May we become the sources of peace.
© 2007 Anne Felton Hines. All rights reserved.
