Forgiveness - what about the bad guy?

So now it's out there. I have done it. I have told you that I think we are desperately losing our ability to forgive. I have heard people say they want to read my blog about forgiveness. Congratulations, that is the beginning, wanting to do something. I have had others say they read it and now have questions. Still others have read and offered comments either on the blog or to me privately. Thank you everyone for reading along and allowing me to have your ears and minds for a few moments each week.

This week, as promised, I want to talk about what the offender, the evil doer, the infidel, should do in response to being confronted about their wrongdoing. First let's just be honest and recognize that it is the rare exception to have someone come to you and confess what they did. On their own... without help... from anyone... telling them to go and confess. If you have the kind of relationship where you are voluntarily confessing then you are already one step ahead of most of the rest of us. Everyone else is hoping no one will EVER find out their offense. As they say, "It's not 'wrong' until someone else knows about it". So usually we are trying desperately not to get caught or be discovered in our wrong-doing. We are "trying to get away with it"

OK - I have to stop just for a moment. Let me ask you a question. Does anyone every truly "get away with it?" and if so what is it exactly that they have gotten away with? Think about this with me for a second. If I steal something and literally get away with "it" what will happen to our relationship? Will I just go on like nothing happened? Seems a little hardhearted right? Or will I be terrified every time you come to my house that you are gonna see "it". Will I feel guilty? Will I stop calling you as much? So what did I get away with again?

Uncle Guy: "I get away with stuff all the time you dumb ass MickGee"
Me: "Guy, why are you here?
Uncle Guy: "I told you I am here for the long haul. After all we're family"
Me: (heavy sigh) "I'm afraid to ask, but what stuff do you get away with"
Uncle Guy: "Well you know your favorite Lakers pajamas you thought got stolen at the Laundry mat?"
Me: "Yes..."
Uncle Guy: "I've been sleeping in them for the past 2 weeks! HA"
Me: "You HAVE washed them though right?"
Uncle Guy: "Why? They have barely started to smell - and basketball season is right around the corner, I wanted them to be broken into my body shape"
Me: (exasperated) "why don't you just keep them..."
Uncle Guy: "See - told you I get away with stuff all the time"

Now that I am almost sorry I brought it up let's get back to what we were talking about. We are trying to cover up our wrong. Something in us just does not want to get caught. Unlike my Uncle Guy who may not have a soul! Some part of us knows that doing something that will hurt someone else is wrong and will harm our relationship. We feel it and we are hard pressed to ignore it. But it is at this point that there is a breach in our relationship. Someone did something and the other person found out and is going to confront them about it. You may not believe me but this is right where forgiveness begins. Seriously. Something has to go wrong for there to even need to be forgiveness right? So there ya go!

When someone is confronted what usually happens? Right, denial. Usually repeated denial. I happen to believe this as a veiled attempt to avoid the impending confrontation. And the fact that they don't like being found out. What will happen next goes one of two ways. They person gives in and confesses part or all of what they did.. You may need to pry the rest of the details out of them. Or they continue to deny often attacking you and making you feel as though you are the one at fault. There are possibly more scenarios. Feel free to share yours with me or in the comments below. The point here is they are just not gonna play ball so to speak. Here is something that you need to get straight right here and right now. It is at this point that you must have the truth. Without it the relationship is headed for serious trouble. Forgiveness only works with the truth. Once you have full confession - the truth, you are ready to move on. Until that comes you may have to walk away and regroup with a new approach. More on that in a future blog post.

If you have the truth, now what is it that you want to have happen next? Let me tell you. You want them to apologize. You want to hear the words I'm sorry with a level of sincerity that would make your grandma tear up and go bake that amazing thing she always bakes at Christmas. You need to know they are sincere. Remember this is someone you are in a relationship with and want to continue to be in a relationship with.

Uncle Guy: "I took the pajamas, I meant to take em and Oooooo they feel Soooo good... You know what, I would take em again!"
Me: "Well at least we have the confession. Looks like the apology part still needs some work."
Uncle Guy: "Oh shut up little nephew it's time for me to get dressed for bed"
Me: (head in my hands shaking it from side to side trying to think how I will forgive Uncle Guy for this one)

Let me tell you one more extremely important part of the process. In fact this should actually come before the apology. Once you get a confession you need to let them know what impact this has had on your relationship. You do not want to hold back here. This is not the time for passive aggressive Payne to make an appearance...

PA Payne: "But I know your uncle didn't really mean to take the pajamas right... and he's probably lonely and hungry... in fact you know what I bet he would like a sandwich. "Hey Uncle Guy would you like a sandwich?"
Me: "Payne, I know you mean well but you need to let me finish telling everyone. People really need to understand this"
PA Payne "Would you like a sandwich to MickGee? It's no trouble. Not like that one time I asked you to make me breakfast but you said you had to get to work!"
Me: "No thank you Payne...(sigh)"

So when you get the confession I want to encourage you not to hold back. Let em have it. Here are a few examples to inspire your response:
"How could you do this to me?"
"Do you ever think about any body but yourself?"
"Is that lipstick on your shirt?"
"What do you mean you were at Dan's house. Dan is out of town for the week"    
"So you did break it then... like you have broken my heart"
"Do you have any idea what this is going to do to our relationship?"
"If you ever touch my pajamas again I'm gonna take a blow torch to..."

Wait a minute... how did that last one get in there? Anyway, you get the point. We owe it to the relationship to let those we love know how they have hurt us. Once they know the truth of what it did to us they have a choice of how to respond. Hopefully it is with an apology and an attempt to rebuild the relationship. But if not at least you have shared the truth about what happened to you because of what they did. And remember the truth is critical to making forgiveness work.

Until next week - remember, everything begins with forgiveness  

Forgiveness Over Easy

In the last installment I threatened to tell you why I believe people want forgiving to be easy. If people believe forgiveness is even worth doing to begin with they are going to want it to be easy. However, just like the complexity of the hurt and emotion that we are struggling with as we enter into the forgiving process forgiveness itself is filled with difficulty and takes many different skills and commitments to accomplish. What I am saying is that forgiveness is not easy. There are many compromised, watered down anemic versions of forgiveness floating around out there and those are easy. Unfortunately they do not accomplish the true goal of forgiveness which is first and foremost reconciliation.

I know what you are thinking. you want to know why on earth you need to be reconciled to that jerk that ruined your life or that drama queen who broke your heart or that deadbeat who took your money and now refuses to pay you back. The one thing these people have in common is that we have a relationship with them because they are our friends and family. This is where I want to start. With your inner circle. Your family and close friends. People who are in your life for the long haul. You ARE going to be in a relationship with them anyway you may as well work on learning to forgive. Why you ask? I would have thought you would already know this. You (and I) are going to say and do things to these people that will require forgiveness and they are going to do the same to us. When this happens. When a trust is broken, when a commitment is not kept, when a hurtful insult hits home, when you are crying because they did that thing again the process of forgiveness has already begun.

Uncle Guy: "MickGee you are such an idiot. How can forgiveness begin when the good insults aren't even done yet?"
Me: (with extreme sarcasm) "Well... so nice to hear from you again 'Guy' where you been?"
Uncle Guy: "Oh I never left, the question is 'where you been?'"
Me: "I... um... HEY! We're talking about forgiveness here right?"

My Uncle brings up a good point. Most people think forgiveness doesn't start until after you have been hurting for a while and finally want it to stop... or something along those lines. This could not be further from the truth. When we are talking about family and friends we already know something about our interactions. That something is the world famous 'second chance.' We all want them. We ALL need them. Some of us even deserve them. While most of us do not.

Uncle Guy: "Man MickGee you make zero sense. How did you even get a blog in the first place?"  
Me: "Guy, let's just dial it down minute and give me a chance to explain. You are so impatient"
Uncle Guy: "Get to the point already!"

So in the forgiveness process the first thing that happens is the offence. This is a nice word for hurt, pain, wrong, sin, evil, etc. The fact remains in order for there to even be forgiveness or the need for it someone first needs to have been wronged or offended. There needs to be someone to blame. In the previous post I talked about our relationship to God and how the wrong we had done required us to make a sacrifice for forgiveness so we could be reconciled with him. Now I want to talk about relationships between men and women, boys and girls. In this case what should happen is once the offense is known there should be a communication from the offended party to the wrongdoer. Now most of us are not gong to like this next part because it is difficult and takes skill and practice to get good at it. What needs to happen is a confrontation. In a perfect world the guilty party would just show up and confess to what he had done. However in our world of 'whatever you do don't get caught' and 'deny everything' this would seem very counter intuitive right?

Uncle Guy: "I have NO problem with confrontation"
Me: "Ya... I know"

My point here is that when you are dealing with your people, your inner circle. You need to pull out your best skills of communication. You have to let it all out. You need to let them know what they did to you and how it has impacted you. You need to let them feel it. Some of us have a natural ability to do this. (You know who you are). But you also need to be careful not to offend them while you do this. I know this is challenging but we are talking about people that we WANT to be in a relationship with most likely. What I am trying to get at here is the idea that every time something goes wrong with those you love and care about. When there is a rift in the relationship you need to already be thinking about how the forgiveness part is gong to work. If we can learn to become forgiving people and not just people who occasionally forgive then we have a shot and seeing forgiveness returning to our culture. But we have to learn this for ourselves and with those who are closest to us. Forgiveness take practice and learning about what forgiveness really is can take some time. There are a lot of forgiveness imitators and haters out there. Don't let them cheat you out of what forgiveness is for.

Uncle Guy: "You said that you were going to tell everyone whey they want forgiveness to be easy... when is that gonna happen...?"
Me: "You're right Guy. I will simply have to ask them to forgive me. I am an abstract thinker and sometimes I take the less than direct route to make my point."
Uncle Guy: "This blog is a waste of cyberspace"
Me: "Sorry you feel that way Uncle. Maybe it's time for you to go."
Uncle Guy: "Me? Go? Sorry nephew I am here for the "long haul" so you better get used to it"

Looks like my uncle and I have a few things to talk about. Her his my chance to practice telling him how his undermining is demoralizing and doesn't really help improve my blog. Stay tuned. Next time I will explain what the offender should do in response to being accused and hearing what damage he has done.

Forgiveness...what?

The problem with forgiveness is that people want it to be easy. If it's not easy they want nothing to do with it. Unfortunately forgiveness is never easy. Have you tried it? Then you know what I mean.

This is not the only problem we face with forgiveness though. We also have the issue of knowing what forgiveness is and what it's for. You think you know? I am here to tell you that you do not. In fact, I am here to tell the world that not only do we not know what forgiveness is, what it is for and just how difficult it is. We have totally lost forgiveness and replaced it with something else. Something that is truly NOT forgiveness. If you doubt me then check this out...

Forgiveness predates every single person living on the planet right now. You didn't invent it or discover it or evolve into it. It is an ancient idea that goes back in human history many many thousands of years. Yes that's what I said. THOUSANDS of years. So let's get away from the idea that you or I or any other "expert" who wrote a book or went to some very expensive and reputable learning institution somehow created the new improved version of forgiveness. Because that just is not true. In fact the exact opposite may be true. Those expert people may actually have damaged and mutilated forgiveness into something it was never intended for. All the while believing they would win the Nobel prize for doing it. Okay, I am sure it is at this point I need to say... I am not against experts or education. Quite the opposite. We need to learn and understand. However we need to be careful what conclusions we draw under the force of public pressure and a modern culture looking for NEW answers to old questions.

So we are not the creators of forgiveness. The origin of forgiveness in the history of our world goes back to a time when man was wrestling with the BIG questions of life. He wanted to know what the sparkly things were in the sky at night and if they would ever fall down on him. He marveled at the rain, the wind, fire, nature, woman, love, fear, death... It was near the beginning. Man looked to the heavens and found God or gods depending on your particular paradigm. What was discovered was man believed that God was not exactly pleased with what was going on down here. Long story short (and it is a fascinating story by the way) it was determined that in order for things to be made right between man and his God there would need to be a sacrifice. That's right, I said sacrifice. Something was gonna have to die! What happened then you ask? Well an expert would take the animal (we won't talk about the God's who required human sacrifice here) butcher it properly and offer a sort of bar-b-q sacrifice to God. Why would we do this you ask? to have forgiveness of course. Man believed that when the sacrifice was made that all of the "bad" or "wrong" things which had been done could be placed on the sacrifice. Then once the sacrifice was killed and offered to God those wrongs were gone... forgiven. What man really wanted was to be in a good relationship with his God who he believed ruled over everything. Really what it came down to was man finding a way to have reconciliation with his God. That when he had broken trust with God there was a way to do something that could make it right. That could grant man forgiveness for what he had done and bring reconciliation between the two; God and man.

Now I realize some people at this point would like to stop talking so much about God. You may have some idea about God that will not agree with the premise of this little story. Sorry about that. I am not particularly fond of stories about slavery either but I still acknowledge them as history. What I am telling you here is not religion as much as it is history. Even though told very loosely which I am sure will get me trouble with someone. We are going for concept here people and not necessarily empirical fact and detail. So are you still with me... ?  

What I hope you understand was that this concept was of utmost importance at one time in the mind of man. There were festivals and celebrations leading up to the time of sacrifice in man's history. It was much more central to who were as humans than it is now. Being right with the God of the universe had a very strong appeal to most everyone. People wanted forgiveness and people wanted reconciliation. Forgiveness is for reconciliation. That is why it exists. I know what you are thinking... that sounds hard. Damn right it sounds hard. In fact without the sacrifice part it was impossible. IMPOSSIBLE. Got it!?
So let me ask you. when you think about forgiveness today does the thought of 'sacrifice' and 'difficult but essential' even enter into your mind? Probably not. Do you wanna know why? Well I am going to have to save that for another blog post. Suffice it to say. We want it easy and we want it now and we want it with zero confrontation and if possible without having to speak to another human to get it.

You know what? I have an idea. I am going to set up an app. It will be called "Forgiveness 123" what you do is type in your 1. wrongdoing 2. your apology and 3. your request for forgiveness. Then you will get a reply text that says. "You are forgiven and everything is going to be just fine... have a nice day - sincerely the Universe or God or Jambi or Your Inner Self or the Light of Life" This way you can get forgiveness from whoever or whatever you think you need forgiveness from without even actually having to speak to the person who you hurt or wronged...would you like that... I bet you would. Hmmmm... I wonder if that would actually work? Well, stay tuned. I have a lot more to say about forgiveness and how we have completely lost it.


-MickGee