Forgiveness Pt. 6: The Easy Five Step Plan

Now, the milkman story applies to what I call “small forgiveness.” Most of what I’ve discussed previously are in the context of “large forgiveness.” The small things, the daily irritations, the social snubs, the pains and itches of life that while irritating don’t stop us in our tracks. Now and then though, we do get stopped in our tracks. Life takes a brick and throws it through the windshield of our lives. We come to a screeching halt and just do not know how to move ahead.

“What happened? My windshield is busted. That just about scarred me to death.”
“Who threw that brick?”
“Where did it come from?”
“How do you expect me to continue driving with a brick through my windshield? There is glass all over the place and I am hurt and bleeding.”
“When am I going to fix this mess so I can move on along?”

Big forgiveness requires effort…a lot of effort. On exceedingly rare occasion something big might happen to a person that can seemingly shrug it off or say a single prayer and move on with their day. I would say that generally people to act like forgiveness happens that way are lying to themselves and everyone else at the same time.
Forgiveness, true forgiveness takes effort and time. We are not God. We can’t snap our fingers (does God have fingers?) and forgive. We human beings almost adore the skeletons in our closets. We nurse them and almost refuse to set them on the curb and be done with them. However….
However, if you follow my easy, pleasy five step plan of forgiveness and send $19.99 to my publisher I’m feeling confident that you will be on your way (again I digress into cynicism and sarcasm, but what did you really expect? Yes, I do have a five step forgiveness plan and it sounds cheesy just typing it out loud, but…I really do think it will help. I really do think we need better framework for forgiveness. We need some direction. This is what I came up with. Use it, adapt it, or throw it out…it’s your choice).
Step one. Understand the WHY. Why do we need to forgive? Realize that you need to forgive for your own selfish reasons most of all. “Selfishness” is almost universally regarded as a negative trait, but when it comes to forgiveness selfishness is in reality a gift from God. We are the ones who benefit most from forgiveness. We are freed from resentment. We are rejuvenated when our emotional and intellectual energy are freed up for better tasks. We are able to move ahead in our lives and leave our interaction with our injurer as part of our story, part of our past, part of who we are, but not the totality of who we are. We need to forgive…for ourselves.
Step two. Understand the WHAT? What happened to you? Define it as many ways as possible. Defining what happened more than one way helps to create a deeper understanding of what actually did happen. For example if you were assaulted by someone you know then many, many things happened. There was a physical assault. There was a breach of trust. There was an invasion of relational boundaries. There was an adjustment to your personal belief that your friends would not do something like that to you. It wasn’t just a physical assault. Knowing “the what” will help you understand more completely what it is you need to forgive.
Step three. Understand the WHERE. The “where” sounds pretty darn simple. It happened here! To you! You are the where. The injury is yours. If someone else was injured then their injury is theirs. But is it really that simple all the time? What about a parent that either has an accident or is hit by another driver. They may be injured, but so may their child. Maybe they are fine and their child or other passenger is the only one hurt. Maybe the injury is temporary like a broken arm, but maybe there are permanent facial scars on a perfect newborn’s face, or maybe there is permanent brain damage. Where is the injury to you? If a loved one is injured by someone else along with your then where is the “where” that you have to forgive?
Where did the injury to you occur. How do you define your injury when someone for destroys your family? Your parents? Your children? Can you forgive an attacker for attacking someone else? Well, were your dreams destroyed? Was your life with your family destroyed? Was your hope for the future destroyed? So…maybe there was something done to you after all. You just have to find it, define it, understand it, and then swallow it so you can spit it back out.
Let’s sum up how we are able to forgive (to remember the past, put it into perspective, and move beyond it).
What Happened? Define it as many ways as you can.
Where? Here! Your injury happened to you. Their injury happened to them. Injuries to loved ones are tough to sort out, but try to define how their injury affected you or your relationship with them.
Who? Who is to blame for this injury? Was it an accident, an intentional act, or a secondary result from a previous action? You have to assign blame in order to forgive.
When? When do I (you) start this forgiving, defining, blaming process? When do I start to heal? When? When you start.
How? It is a process. A messy process. We have defined and blamed, now you have to do you. You have to strengthen yourself. Remind yourself you are not just a victim-you have power. You must get yourself to realize that you have the mental, emotional, and spiritual power to “move beyond the past” and create a new life for your road that lies ahead.

Whether it is a “small” injury that you can “gift” to the injurer or a larger injury that takes years of solitary effort; you can forgive. You should forgive. It is not letting the offender off the hook. It is stripping the offender of the power to continue to hurt you. Their personal weakness, shortcomings, or insanity impacted you. Regain yourself. Regain your strength. Look up and see your life beyond your injury.

Forgiveness Pt. 5: Grace the Milkman

So what have we done? We have blamed someone for the injury, we have regained our strength, now comes throwing the switch and actually forgiving…moving beyond the injury. I read a story once (actually I read a lot of stories, but this one is actually germane to the topic at hand), a very old tale about a milk man (No! Not that milk man story…this is a different one). A particular customer had requested some extra milk one week. The milkman had delivered it as requested, but when he got paid for the month the customer had shorted the milkman the money for the extra milk.
It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but the milkman couldn’t quit thinking about it. He became more and more bitter every time he made a delivery to the family and complained incessantly to his friend about the transgression. Now the milkman was realizing that the unpaid milk was costing him more than it should. It was his time, his energy, his emotions that were caught up in the whole “milk scandal.” So his friend had a suggestion for him.

“Why not make a gift of the milk.”
“What do you mean…”make a gift of the milk” they have already stolen it from me. How do I make a gift of it?”
“If you make a gift for it they never really owed for it in the first place; did they?”
“So you are suggesting that this milk that they requested, that they didn’t pay for, that I delivered, that they have already enjoyed…. This milk they didn’t pay for; you want me to make it a retroactive gift?”
“If you make it a gift then they didn’t steal it—you gave it to them.”

So a couple of days go by and eventually the milkman was able to make a gift of the milk. He realized that though they were to blame for the lack of payment and he was at a loss for payment; he was a more substantial person than to get all upset about some lost milk. By and by he found that his demeanor changed when approaching the house. He ceased to speak ill of the family. In fact he actually began to feel that he had done something good. Maybe someone in the family had been ill and required extra milk. Perhaps that had happened at a time of financial hardship. Even if it didn’t it felt good to know he had given a gift.

Then something else happened.

The lady of the house stepped outside one day as he was making his usual delivery. She was reconciling her statements and had realized that she had shorted his payment several weeks before. In her hand, at the end of her outstretched arm was the money she had owed.

Now here is a part of forgiveness we often overlook.

The milkman told her he couldn’t accept the payment. It was kind of an awkward social moment. Why wouldn’t he be able to accept payment? It was his business to make money delivering milk. It was the customer’s responsibility to pay. She didn’t understand. The milkman hesitated… Then beginning, slowly at first, and with a bit of embarrassment told her how angry he had been. He told her how resentful he had become when he had made deliveries since then. The customer, quite taken aback, didn’t know what to think for a bit. Here was this man telling her how angry he had been, but the whole time he had this large grin on his face. His demeanor was cheerful, but here he was talking about anger and bitterness towards her.
Then the milkman told her of how he knew he needed to get over it, but he just couldn’t seem to. He told her about his friend’s suggestion to make a gift of the milk and about how he had done just that.

“But, why won’t you take the money now?”
“Because I can’t take payment for a debt you don’t owe. It was and is a gift from me to you.”

At it’s core forgiveness is about grace. Grace makes us better people. Grace makes whoever is forgiven better and forgiving better. Try this, the next time you are standing in a long line and someone cuts into the queue by “saying hello” to an old friend they would otherwise never acknowledge…make a gift of your place in line. Is it worth your anger? Is it worth your resentment? Are you running late? Do you have somewhere important to go and you had to pick up this one last minute thing? Then forgive yourself for not planning better. If someone else is affected as well then give them a call if you possibly can and let them know you miscalculated the amount of time and you are running behind. The fellow who cut in line...just make a gift of that little bit of space between you and the next car and go on with your day.

Forgiveness Pt 4: Your are the expert and are strong

If up till now I seem to be a bit cynical or sarcastic about other’s views of forgiveness and viewpoint in general let me assure you that you are not incorrect. That does not mean I am being most constructive when I am cynical and sarcastic. It’s just with so many “self help” books, faith based or otherwise, out there with little or no redeeming value it is hard for me to take the whole genre with much seriousness.
Even this that I am writing should be taken with a grain of salt. I am only an expert in my own life…and I’m making that up as I go. I don’t hold a PhD... I’m not a certified counselor. Sometimes I have a hard time holding my own relationships together. When I look at many others my age who are more accomplished I am almost embarrassed. They have finished their doctoral degrees. Their degrees may even be from more prestigious schools. They may make more and live in larger houses. The reason for this (at least in part) is because this is where they have focused their effort…their careers, their education.
I am, on one hand, proud to say that I have spent an inordinate amount of time building relationships. I have always felt it is people that are most important. Maybe that is my calling from God…to put people first.
In the past I had a lot of good friends. Then I got married. My wife has become the center of my life. Now that we have a child, he too is at the center. My friends have taken a back seat. I hardly call them, email them, write them, or see them. I’m reminded of something a man in Louisville once told me. He was in his 50’s (I guess) and was a member of the YMCA where I worked while I was in seminary. I’m not sure how we got on the topic, but he mentioned he didn’t have any friends.
He told me he went to work, came to the “Y” to work out, and then went home to his wife. He, the same as I (at this point in my life) didn’t keep in touch with old friend and acquaintances. Now don’t misunderstand this was not a sad, depressed man getting ready to walk out into traffic without looking both directions. He was smiling when he told me this and was generally one of the happiest people I had the pleasure of knowing there. It’s just how it is sometimes in life.
Sometimes, even when we are keeping up with our friendships and acquaintances we can experience great loneliness. I’ve kind of lost track of where I was going with all that except to say that I am not the final word in your relationships…you are. The things I am sharing with you are tools, perspectives, information, stories. You can take and use them. You can get bored and reject them. You can glean what you can and use it to help yourself and others you come into contact with. It’s your choice.
Despite my cynicism and sarcastic tendencies it is love that I want to share with you. My love for you and my love for seeing people love each other. Isn’t that a precious thought? I feel like Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live (I’ve got a feeling I’ll be mentioning him now and again).
Now then, where was I? Oh yes, we were blaming someone for hitting me over the head with a frying pan---not that anyone has really done that, but you get the idea. If you don’t blame anyone then you can’t forgive anyone.
In several different places I have read that forgiveness comes from a position of strength. However, if we have been abandoned, taken advantage of, robbed, or somehow invaded then the question begs; how are we in a position of strength? Well, at least initially we aren’t.
When I was doing my training for family and divorce mediation I learned there was a large number of a divorcee’s who did two specific things; run marathons and go to medical school. It rang true because I knew a girl who was going through a divorce and was preparing for both (medical school and a marathon). When her husband hit her she was not in a position of strength. When she decided to divorce him and run the marathon and go back to school she was proving to herself (and others) how strong she really was. When a marriage ends there is a huge hole in a person’s life. They have been putting a huge amount of emotional energy into their relationship for months if not for years, and now they have no one to pour that energy into. Hence, marathons and medical school.
Besides being a reservoir to pour energy into these things (and plenty of others) fill a role in the process of healing and forgiving. Accomplishing goals, stepping out and doing new things, learning who you are again; and doing so on your own effort (as opposed to the effort of family and friends…I’m not saying they won’t be a help – nor am I making a theological statement that you are doing these things apart from God) creates power for yourself. The accomplishment tells you that despite what someone did to you, you are strong and intelligent. You are a person of fortitude.
Medical school and marathons may be a bit extreme. Your power may come from getting a job after being a stay at home mom for years. After joining the workforce you may realize (you need to realize) that you are valuable, do have skills, and can make a contribution. The person(s) that hurt you took from you choices, financial resources, and/or your personal freedom. As you gain strength you are creating a solid foundation from which to forgive.

Forgiveness Pt. 2 - Laying the Blame

Now don’t get me wrong; here in a few pages I’m going to have my own list of steps on how to forgive. I’m just trying to break up the tension a little bit, because what we are discussing here is really serious stuff. People say and do silly little things at work everyday that get under your skin. Companies fire you for reasons you don’t think are valid. Punks rob you. Thugs break into your home. Relatives molest other relatives. People get raped. People get murdered. There is a lot to forgive in our world today.
When I was growing up my mom used to say, “I never said life was fair.” That’s the truth. We don’t always get what we deserve. Religious leaders and well meaning people will delude themselves and others into not taking action, suppressing emotions, or burying the truth by saying the actions of others will catch up to them some day. Well…it doesn’t always happen that way. And yet…. And yet if we don’t forgive we are stuck in a place in our lives where the event, the action, the scar they left is all we seem to be able to focus on. Or maybe we bury it and never acknowledge the crime done to us. The thing is we can never forgive a wrong if we don’t admit a wrong has been done. How do you ever forgive someone if you won’t admit that they did anything to you?
I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Flanigan when she says that to forgive someone you first have to blame them. Sometimes, I don’t like to assign blame. I’ve never walked in that person’s shoes. I don’t know what life experiences they have had that led them up to that point. It didn’t really do much of any real harm and I know they have had a tough time. The thing is…everyone is responsible for his or her own actions. There are a lot of people out there who have been through some pretty terrible stuff; abuse, neglect, rape, molestation, death of loved ones, and more. Many of these people are caught up in destructive patterns of behavior that they have tried unsuccessfully to escape. When it comes down to it; when they do something bad to you it is their fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not their parents fault. It’s not their attacker’s fault if they were previously victims. It is their fault.
If someone hurts you the blame is on them. Not you. Not anyone else. You will never really be able to forgive them if you don’t blame them. You have to state it, say it out loud, yell it, or at least acquiesce to it…. “It is your fault this happened. You are the reason I am hurt. I blame you.” I know in the past (and still to a certain extent in the present) I have a strong tendency to want to “walk in the other person’s shoes.” That is I want to explain away their behavior by saying their past led them to this…it’s not really their fault. Well, the thing is their past wasn’t swinging a frying pan at my head…it was them!
Understanding someone’s background will help you understand why they did it (maybe), but it isn’t an excuse. Whether they are an adult or a child (to be held accountable legally or not) if they did something to you then they did something to you. This isn’t a commentary on our justice system. I’m not saying children should be treated like adults in the courts (I’m not saying they shouldn’t be either). I’m saying for the sake of forgiveness, if you don’t blame someone there is no one to forgive!

Forgiveness Pt 1: The resources are out there

The book was called “Total Forgiveness” and I had high hopes for it. The author had gone to the same seminary as I did and he was the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London for twenty-five years. I figured he had been around a “high brow” congregation for a while. “High brow” congregants typically are snooty because they are intelligent and won’t let a pastor get by with a lot of meaningless religious jargon every Sunday morning (unless it is very, very pretty sounding religious jargon).
The first couple of pages of the book were devoted to various pastors and leaders saying good things about the book. There were some really conservative names. There were some people I had never heard of. There were also some people that, for me anyway, led instant credibility to the book. For example; Cliff Barrows of Billy Graham Crusade organization lent his name and credence to the book as did Tony Campolo.
I was really excited because so much of what I had uncovered in Christian circles about forgiveness was just a bunch of empty nothingness. “We need to forgive because we are commanded to forgive.” “Forgiveness is essential to the Christian life.” “We must forgive and forget.” Blah, blah, blah…. Most of the stuff I’ve read growing up in church and even in seminary doesn’t define forgiveness. It doesn’t give you any clear understanding of what may be involved in forgiveness. It doesn’t even really give you a clue when you may or may not have actually forgiven someone.
With this book I was really expecting something different. I don’t know why I was expecting something different. There must be part of me that is an eternal optimist. However…once I started reading…nothing new at all…it was just the same old same old. At one point it looked like it was going to get personal as the author told about some issue where he hadn’t forgiven someone. Unfortunately, he did not give any details…which means he didn’t make it personal. I’m gonna have a hard time finishing the book.
I am thankful that some time before picking up “Total Forgiveness” I picked up “Forgiving the Unforgivable.” I had just had a fight with my wife and saw it in the bookstore. We had been arguing (I don’t remember if it was just before getting up or just as we were going to sleep) in bed and I got mad and got up and slammed my pillow down…partially on her head. Now the pillow didn’t hurt her, but the idea that when angry I would resort to ANY sort of physical intimidation or violence scared the shit out of her…and me too!
So I’m thinking…what would make me do something like that? I must have a few skeletons in my closet to make me react like that. I’m the kind of person that when I want to know about something I’ll go read about it. So I was off to the local Barnes & Nobles to get me a dose of self help (just because it may be a “self help” book doesn’t mean God didn’t lead me to it.). What I found was “Forgiving the Unforgivable.” The author, Beverly Flanigan, is a social worker and makes no comment throughout the whole book on whether or not she is a Christian. However, I can tell you this… regardless of whether or not she is a Christian most of us could learn a lot about forgiveness by listening to what she has to say.
The book does have a distinctive academic tone to it. That is, it isn’t the easiest read. However, there has been a movement in academia lately to urge scholars to write in a more understandable manner. I’ve seen more than one PhD thesis that was published and available in local bookstores. I would place Flanigan’s work in this kind of category. It does have a distinctive academic tone, but it is tempered with the knowledge that if it is too antiseptic no one will read it.
Ms. Flanigan also keeps it real. She gives details on lots of scenarios that she has run across over the years. You can read and clearly understand, sympathize, and/or empathize with the stories. This book isn’t about forgiving someone for stepping on your toe or accidentally getting into your Lexus with mud on their shoes. This book is about big forgiveness. It’s about your life coming unraveled and finding a way to push through it. I love the way she writes about forgiveness.
“To forgive, one must remember the past, put it into perspective, and move beyond it.”[1] She immediately puts aside the notion that forgiving means forgetting. She immediately puts aside the notion that saying, “I forgive you” is anything more than an empty proclamation when real damage has been done. She lets you know that forgiveness is often a solitary journey that is slow and requires persistence.
Quite often we imagine forgiveness taking place only after someone says they are sorry and then wants to be forgiven. However, she points out that in many, many situations the person committing the offence NEVER says they are sorry. Maybe they didn’t realize they did anything. Maybe they have moved to a new city or state with their new boyfriend/girlfriend. Maybe they are in prison. The point is that forgiveness can still take place even if you never get an apology.[2]
I was also excited to find some fairly well developed resources on the internet regarding forgiveness. TheForgivenessProject.com, Peacefultommorrows.org, learningtoforgive.com, JourneyTowardForgiveness.com, Forgiving.org, and Forgivenessweb.com are all web sites that have something to offer. I’m not saying that I agree with everything on these websites by any means, but I do think that as a whole they can shed new light, new vision, and create new insights on how to forgive.
It’s really interesting to read the various steps of forgiveness. Journeytowardforgiveness.com has five (5) steps. Fred Luskin has four (4) steps. Victor Parachin has ten (10) guidelines. For the most part they all have some good points and some have a few that I think are actually rather silly. For example Parachin’s number two (2) guideline smacks of Saturday Night Live’s Stuart Smalley when he says, “Spend a few minutes each day cleaning out your thinking.”[3] I’m not saying it’s not a good idea…it just sounds goofy.
The key thing here is that there are some good resources out there on forgiveness…we just have to go and find them.
[1] p 5 “Forgiving the Unforgivable” by Beverly Flanigan. Wiley Publishing.
[2] P23-26 “Forgiving the Unforgivable” by Beverly Flanigan. Wiley Publishing.
[3] http://www.sober.org/ForgVict.html