Forgiveness

 

As leaders, and especially leaders in school communities, criticism and sometimes even attacks come our way.  There are instances when people say things to us and about us, do things, write things, post things, etc., which are intended to hurt us.  When it happens, we tend to consider two options – react or ignore.  Some things are easier to ignore than others.  One comment on a post by someone we don’t have a relationship with is easier to ignore than ongoing hurtful behavior from someone we do.  Sometimes it’s a matter of intensity and duration.  The behavior can reach a level that “gets to us” emotionally, leading us to become resentful and bitter.  We think feeling this way is "getting them back."  In fact, holding onto the resentment and bitterness does us more harm than good.  It’s not easy to let it go.  It takes forgiveness.

But forgiveness is a tricky thing.  One of the reasons is because it is often a double-standard.  We want others to forgive us yet we’re not so willing to extend forgiveness to others.  Another reason it’s tricky is because we often see it as a win/lose situation.  We feel if we forgive, the other person feels better but we still feel the hurt that was caused by whatever the transgression against us was.  The other person "wins." 

Let me offer a little perspective about forgiveness.  

A good friend of mine lost his 20 year old son when a drunk driver in a pickup truck crossed the centerline and slammed into his motorcycle, killing his son (and his girlfriend who was riding with him).  My friend and I have had a few conversations about that tragedy.  He and his wife have continued to work through their grief and have found some comfort in counseling others who have lost children. 

 

One of the conversations my friend and I had revolved around forgiveness.  I was principal at Xavier at that time and he wanted to know from the Catholic School principal, how in the world he was supposed to forgive the drunk driver for this seemingly unforgivable offense.  The driver who had six previous drunk driving convictions.  The driver who was driving without a license.  The driver who valued life so little that he got behind the wheel of five thousand pounds of metal with a .19 blood alcohol level and took that weapon onto a two lane highway at over 70 miles per hour putting everyone in his path in harm’s way.  The driver that took his son away.  The son he would never go fishing or hunting with again.  The son he would never go to another football game with.  The son he would not see get married.  The son he and his wife loved.  How in the world do you forgive someone who does that?

 

I had no magic words or profound answers for his question.  I can’t imagine the grief that he still felt, even after several years.  Nothing I could say could take the grief away.  It was nearly impossible to try to help him let go of the anger and the resentment he was feeling.  I wish I would’ve had the right words to help him see that holding on to the anger was not hurting nor punishing the driver.  The driver wasn’t going to care.  In fact, by holding onto the anger, he was giving the driver who killed his son power over him.  The driver not only killed his son but was now maintaining a painful hold on my friend as well.  Only when he could truly forgive the driver would that negativity begin to subside. 

 

Forgiveness is not letting the other person off the hook.  It is not relieving them of their responsibility.  It is not meant to make that person feel better.  Forgiveness is a way to release ourselves from the toxic resentment and sometimes fury that has built inside us and we continue to hold onto.  Nelson Mandela once said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill our enemy.”  It serves no purpose but to continually remind us of the pain we feel.

I wish I could tell you that our conversation ended with my friend saying, “Wow, I never thought of it that way.  You’ve helped me see that I need to forgive that guy.”  We all know better.  All I can hope is that someday my friend can find something inside of him that will allow him to forgive.  I really believe he will.  Not for the driver’s benefit.  But for his own.  It hurt me to see my friend in so much pain.  I wanted him to begin the healing and that was never going to happen without forgiveness. 

 

And it all got me thinking.  If I was suggesting to my friend that he forgive someone for such an unfathomable offense, why was I holding onto resentment for those who have done much less to me.  In a classic case of, “Physician, heal thyself,” moment, I took stock of the grudges I was holding.  It’s not like I was keeping a “naughty or nice” list, but I thought of enough examples of my bitterness toward people who meant something to me and those I hardly knew.  And I decided it was time to let go.  With a few, I had conversations that amounted to a simple, “That hurt me, and I want you to know I’m not mad anymore.”  That simple beginning started conversations that helped start rebuilding a relationship. With others, I didn’t know them well enough to have the conversation.  But in both cases, I emptied myself of the proverbial “poison” Mandela spoke of.  I recognized that we can’t control how others act, only how we respond.  When we respond with bitterness, anger, and resentment, it is us who suffer.  When we refuse to go down that path, we are the ones in control.