Sermon Archives : 2006/2007

Forgiveness

Rebecca B. Lee  ·  December 31, 2006

So here we are at another New Year, at another New Year’s Eve service. I preached here two years ago, talking about happiness -- just after the tsunami hit. Last year I was supposed to preach this service, but a funny thing happened November 28, 2005. My husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary – and we both could have easily been killed in a car wreck. To make matters worse, the guy that hit us had no license, no insurance, and the plates didn’t match his truck. And he ran away from the scene of the accident, leaving me with a nasty concussion and my husband with a shattered knee.

So what am I preaching about this year? Forgiveness.

Forgiveness is something to be desired, supposedly. Jesus forgave the people that crucified him as he was dying. Ghandi forgave the men that shot him under similar circumstances. I ain’t that good. And, I’m sure that we have all struggled with the concept of forgiveness, been confronted with the difficulty of forgiving someone who has wronged us, especially when the other person has expressed no sorrow, no willingness to make amends, or even acknowledge that they have done something to harm us. We see this dynamic played out not only in our personal lives, but also in the media – and even here, in the past history of our church. Our Universalist founders, however, believed in Universal salvation, so in their name and in hopes of honoring their contribution to our faith and principals, I would like to explore the idea of forgiveness.

Why forgive in the first place? Talking simply from the perspective of our car wreck, we did nothing wrong. We did nothing to deserve being rear-ended by a Ford F-150 truck doing 70 miles an hour on rain-slick interstate. We were obeying the rules--we were the victims here!

This sort of righteous anger is very seductive – we were hurt, we were wrong, we deserve justice, we deserve compensation! This view is reinforced by the insurance industry and by the accident injury attorneys – and it does have its benefits in the healing process. Anger can give us energy. Anger can get us through some tough times; can make us stronger than we’d ever thought we’d be. But in the end, I believe that it is a trap – because it keeps us in the role of victims, and because it takes a lot of energy to be angry.

This is the left brain stuff; the science that suggests that forgiveness is a healthy option. When we get angry, we’re in the fight mode of the fight-or-flight response. Our brain has identified something as being dangerous to us, and rather than run for our lives, we’re going to duke it out with the bad guys. So we’re pumping out adrenalin so our muscles are tense, our hearts are racing, we’re breathing quickly, our blood flow is pulling back from our hands and feet so our vital organs will be well-supplied in case of an injury – and we can choose to stay stuck in this condition, or after repeated trauma, our body will remain in a constant state of red alert, waiting for the next disaster, certain that one is coming. Some people stay in fight mode for years – you know the type, the ones with the permanent chip on their shoulders, the ones who are on the look-out for any slights or offenses, who give into road rage or shopping cart buggy rage, or I WILL get that last X-Box 360 rage here at Christmas time.

Everett Worthington, Jr., author of Five Steps to Forgiveness: The Art and Science of Forgiving is a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and a pioneer in forgiveness research. I found his work quoted on Beliefnet.com: He has found that people who won't forgive the wrongs committed against them tend to have negative indicators of health and well being: more stress-related disorders, lower immune-system function, and worse rates of cardiovascular disease than the population as a whole. In effect, by failing to forgive they punish themselves. Unforgiving people are also thought to experience higher rates of divorce, which also reduces well being, given that married men and women consistently do better on most health barometers, including longevity.

In contrast people who forgive, Worthington finds, may have better health, fewer episodes of clinical depression, longer marriages and better social support, another indicator of well being. This latter means forgiving people get along better with others, who in turn come to their aid in social support situations.”

The 12 Step folks, as they usually do, have a pithy way of saying this: resentments are a luxury we cannot afford. Holding resentment against another person is like taking the poison of long-term anger – and waiting for the other person to die. Thus, forgiveness becomes a gift we give ourselves, not the other person. After all, we cannot control any other person, place, thing or event in our lives – we cannot change anyone else --- all we can control is the actions that we take, most of what we say, and some of what we feel. If we continue to nurse our anger until the other person makes amends, fueled by our sense of righteous anger, we not only continue to respond as victims, we are basing our happiness on the actions of someone else – in effect, giving the person who has already wronged us control of our happiness. When we take responsibility for our own health and well being, forgiveness can become more of an option as something we do for ourselves, not the other person.

Many of you have heard of Bishop Desmond Tutu and his role in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Nelson Mandela created the commission and charged it with providing support and reparation to the victims of apartheid and their families – and also, to in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of the crimes of human rights violations – and to bear witness to the horrors of the time. Of the 7112 people who applied for amnesty, 849 were awarded amnesty by the Commission, which based its decisions on the crime’s political motivations, its proportionate size and impact, and if was full disclosure by the person seeking amnesty. Desmond Tutu writes, “To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. These emotions are all apart of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things.”

“However, when I talk of forgiveness I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive, then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator.”

I found his words at the website for The Forgiveness Project. The project started in Ireland, as a response to struggle between Catholics and Protestants and has grown worldwide with stories of people, famous and not, who have transformed their lives by the process of forgiveness. I was struck by the story of Marian Partington, whose sister was the victim of a pair of serial killers. Her story starts, “For me, forgiveness began with murderous rage” at the discovery of her sister’s body. She comes to realize that she has that rage in common with her sister’s killers and begins to see them as human beings, with their own history and motivations. She humanizes them, instead of demonizing them… and so begins her journey of forgiveness.

So if forgiveness is desirable, how to we get there? How long does it take? And are there other benefits?

Forgiveness begins in anger.

Forgiveness is a choice, made at the last of the healing process, not at the beginning.

Forgiveness takes time.

And forgiveness is something that we do for ourselves, not for the other person.

And it’s not easy.

Dr. Fred Luskin of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project distills the process into steps. First is the realization of the pain that our anger is causing us – that the resentment is living rent free in our head, taking up a lot of energy and space. We are harming ourselves, not the other person with our long-term anger. Dr. Luskin names how we fertilize our anger and keep it alive and growing: we take the offense personally, we blame our current actions on past events, we nurse our grievances, and we use our hope of a universe with rules that make sense to call down punishment on those who harmed us.

Now when someone is in my face, shouting at me angrily, it’s hard not to take it personally – or when someone hits my car with his car. But were his actions more about me or more about him? Did I do anything to provoke or cause the incident, or was I simply in the wrong place at the wrong time – and so vulnerable to his stupidity/carelessness/addictions?

I didn’t say that this would be easy. It is painful, but ultimately healing, to look for our part in the trouble. Most victims of rape go through a stage of blaming themselves for the crime – only by examining the events can true issues of responsibility be decided. As I tell my clients at the Rape and Sexual Abuse Center, having a drink at a bar is not a crime if you’re over 21, but putting one of the date rape drugs in that drink is most definitely a crime – there is clear intent to do harm.

After anger comes grief. The world has changed, we have changed, and we’re struggling. After our car wreck last year, my husband and I were hospitalized for 3 days. My husband had two fractures in the tibial plateau of his right knee – he was standing outside our car and was brushed by the bumper of one of the cars. If he had been standing more fully in front of the car, he would have been more seriously injured – or killed. As it was, the top of the tibia was depressed about two inches, the ligaments were torn, and I won’t tell you what the surgeon said that the muscle looked like. My injuries, in comparison, were minor – I was inside the car, still wearing my seatbelt, and sustained a concussion and whiplash from the impact. But if my husband had died that day, I wouldn’t have remembered it – I still have amnesia for most of that day. I have no memories of the accident, only waking up and seeing a very hospital-looking ceiling. I could feel that I was lying down yet moving – on a gurney, I guessed, and that my neck really hurt.

What followed was chaos – my husband had to have reconstructive surgery on his knee to the tune of a plate and seven surgical screws. He was off work for seven months as he slowly learned to walk again. Our daughter became our caretaker, driving us around from doctor’s appointments to hospitals. She did the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning – everything that we suddenly could not do. She did have excellent help, but more about that later.

We told our story of grievances to anyone who would listen. It defined our lives and our relationships for a while, and still does to a lesser extent today. We blamed the idiot in the truck for hitting us, we “what if-ed” ourselves --- what if we had left ten minutes earlier? Or later? Would we have even been in that accident? What if I hadn’t asked my husband to go and check on the passengers of another car? What if I hadn’t had my seat belt buckled? Would I have gone through the windshield?

And how does this event make sense in our lives? What meaning can we give it? It was a senseless accident. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time and could have been killed by an irresponsible and inattentive – or impaired –driver going a lot faster than he should of for the weather conditions. What story do we tell ourselves about the last year?

If you’ve talked to me in the past year, I probably told you about my aches and pains, my husband’s struggle to walk again, and how we were just getting by. It has been the toughest time of my adult life.

But instead of blaming the driver for all that was suddenly wrong in our lives, I found myself falling back on another 12 Step phrase that I had learned from working with folks in recovery from addiction: an attitude of gratitude.

And there was a lot to be grateful for: friendly voices on the phone, drivers to the doctors appointments, good folks to be with our daughter, Caitlin, for her emotional support, good food from people I knew well and people I didn’t know at all, cards, visits, help around the house – all from this church. You all helped me to see the beloved community that we have here. And realizing the benefits of this tragedy has helped me move past blaming into gratitude.

For there are benefits: I know now that I am stronger than I ever knew before. I have strong connections to good people who will help me in times of trouble and despair. I have deepened and enriched my relationships with my husband and my daughter. I have watched my daughter grow into her sudden new responsibilities with a maturity and strength that was and is delightful to see and that has stood her in good stead as she went to college out of state this fall.

So am I ready to forgive this idiot driver? No – apparently not yet. The Atlanta police have not told us of any arrest or prosecution, or even a positive identification of the driver, so our desire for justice will go unfulfilled in all likelihood. So… no license, no insurance, no identification, no punishment. But, on the other hand, I am grateful for our “uninsured motorist” coverage with our insurance company.

Let me quote to you a new definition of forgiveness, from the Stanford Forgiveness Project: “forgiveness is the feeling of peace that emerges as you take your hurt less personally, take responsibility for how you feel, and become a hero instead of a victim in the story that you tell. Forgiveness is the experience of peacefulness in the present moment. Forgiveness does not change the past, but it changes the present. Forgiveness means that even though you are wounded you choose to hurt and suffer less. Forgiveness means you become a part of the solution. Forgiveness is the understanding that hurt is a normal part of life. Forgiveness is for you and no one else.”

Forgiveness is a choice, first and foremost. Forgiveness is not condoning what went wrong. It is not saying that the wrong done was right, or desirable, expectable or even excusable. Wrong is still wrong and we have the right to say “never again” and plan to protect ourselves in the future. Forgiveness is giving up the hope of a better past, accepting what happened, finding the blessings of adversity, remembering the beauty that still exists, making the choice to forgive, and moving on.

New Year’s is traditionally the time of new beginnings, new hopes, and new resolutions. Doing the work of forgiveness, if we choose to, if we are ready to, can also bring us new beginnings, new hopes, and new ways to live our life in gratitude, beauty, and beloved community.

Last time I was up here, I created a new Unitarian Universalist communion experience. I asked folks to come up, take a stone to symbolize all the things of this year that they wanted to let go of and then release that stone into water. To symbolize the hope of the new year, I then offer them chocolate.

This year too, I do have chocolate. But with two differences: it is dark chocolate, semi-sweet. Dark chocolate does contain all sorts of things that are good for us – anti-oxidants to help the heart, improve blood pressure, soften the skin, boost memory, lengthen attention span, shorten reaction time, and improving problem-solving skills. It has less sugar than the milk chocolate that we are more familiar with and more of the bitter cocoa beans. And that citation is from Health magazine, quoted by CNN!

And the second difference? You have the choice to come and get it or not – after the service.