Inside NCR There could be a lot more forgiving
Heres a prediction. There is
going to be a lot of talk of forgiveness in the next year or two. And the talk
might lead to God knows what.
In the first place, the time is right. A time of endings and
beginnings. Dont let the sun go down on your anger, we have been telling
one another for centuries. And ahead of us is one of the all-time sunsets: end
of year, of century, of millennium.
There will be pressure to forgive, not just from religious
conviction but from our human nature -- we dont want to go away mad at
the end of the day or week; well feel better if we can throw animosity
out the window. But, beyond the self-interest, add the benevolence special
occasions instill in us. A millennial leap reminds us how temporary we all are,
we in the same boat ultimately, so instead of demonizing those who wronged us
we are, at such times, inclined to give other poor devils the benefit of the
doubt.
It helps greatly when people tell us, as experts do, that
forgiving others is also doing ourselves a favor. Its even good for our
health.
And it also helps that theres plenty to forgive. President
Clinton had plenty to ask forgiveness for, but he also has plenty to forgive --
though, as citizens saw on television, he doesnt yet seem enthusiastic
about it.
Jubilee 2000 is about forgiving of a different kind. The poor
world is taking advantage of this momentous occasion to ask the rich world to
forgive all or at least some of the immense debts that weigh down the already
oppressed. Everyone from the pope to your neighbor -- with the possible
exception of some rich banking persons -- is behind this crusade.
And there could be great reciprocity here. If the moguls presently
strangling the billions of very poor people were to write that debt off with a
flourish, they would then be entitled to ask the poor from everywhere on earth
to forgive, in one vast act of friendship and fellowship, all the wrongs and
injustices of the past, wiping all the slates clean, maybe leading to new ways
of living together so that all this would never happen again.
Another aspect of forgiveness comes in the wake of the uphill
journeys toward peace in many nations. South Africa is a poignant example.
Another reminder is a new book by Nobel Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire,
The Vision of Peace: Faith and Hope in Northern Ireland, edited
by Jesuit Fr. John Dear (Orbis, 123 pages, $14). It tells the story of the
Peace People, begun by Catholic Corrigan and Protestant neighbor Betty Williams
in the 1970s, and of their struggle that has taken so many years to pay off.
There are chapters about the search for peace and justice throughout the
world.
One chapter, The Politics of Mercy and Forgiveness,
focuses on a Protestant gunman who tortured and killed many people, spent some
years in jail, where he repented. When he got out, he spent his time doing good
-- until he was shot dead on a Belfast street.
Could not the politics of mercy and forgiveness be extended
to all political prisoners? Corrigan Maguire asks. She repeats the common
and reasonable objection that this would be unfair to the victims. She places
herself firmly on the side of the victims, then goes on, but I must say
that in all my years as a peace activist, I have been inspired by the spirit of
forgiveness shown by so many who have suffered the loss of loved ones through
our political violence. Most often, the loudest voices against prisoner
releases are those who have not suffered.
Another book, called Jubilee Journal, by Mary Cabrini
Durkin and Sheila Durkin Dierks (Woven Word Press, 811 Mapleton Ave., Boulder
CO 80304), is subtitled A Workbook of Forgiving for the Millennium. It
is true to the title of workbook, with many blank pages interspersed
with helpful text.
Deep forgiveness, the authors write, is the hard work of
facing the old hurts which have rooted themselves in our personalities. It is
the work of revisiting troubles, ones which we said are over and disposed of,
but which we know lie like small (or large) rocks in the pit of our psyches,
waiting for the moment to stone us again. They are even sometimes old friends
whom we turn to when we want a reason to justify our anger in a new
situation.
Very few people say forgiveness is easy, but equally few question
how good people feel when they forgive. The authors of Jubilee Journal
continue: The time will come when, as a fine gift of all your labor, the
words of forgiveness will find their place. Such phrases as I forgive
you, I release you from retribution for your deeds, are very
powerful. They are the words of your power. A tremendously powerful image is
that you are anointed as a peacemaker. You have the power to bring peace into
your world. That is enormous power. No longer the victim, you have reclaimed
your agency. You are able to control your life (and sometimes the life of the
offender). When you know this, when you exercise this, you are liberated, and
you have made jubilee.
-- Michael Farrell
National Catholic Reporter, February 26,
1999
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