Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 1:01am
The invitation in forgiveness
Column: Life at First Sight
Wherever I go this week, I encounter the topic of forgiveness. It's come up in personal conversations and group discussion, in reading, in movies, seemingly everywhere I turn.
And it's been kindled most deeply by a process that's become part of everyday life for me these days - sorting through boxes and boxes of my parents' belongings now that they've both gone on to whatever comes next.
For a while, I simply couldn't get to this activity. I moved the boxes into my home, where they accumulated steadily, forgotten in other rooms, most of them safely out of sight. Finally, when a new batch arrived and there was nowhere left to put them, I knew it was time to begin.
Who knew what doors this would open? It's been like falling into whole other worlds. There is information about my parents' lives that is surfacing for the first time, of course. There's an endless stirring of memories, which lead to a cascade of all kinds of feelings.
Inevitably, there are also the echoes of old hurts, things it would be easier not to remember. That, I am discovering, is an invitation to the humbling, nearly overwhelming freedom that forgiveness offers.
One author, Erik Blumenthal, has been a valued companion on my spiritual journey through the years, ever since something I read in one of his books knocked me right off the couch where I lay reading. All these years later, I can still remember the words on the page in front of me, which suggested that the person who comes to understand his parents can forgive the world. I went back and read that over again several times as I tried to grasp the very concept.
The author, who grew up Jewish in Nazi Germany, certainly knew a thing or two about pain, injustice and the kinds of deprivation and suffering that can make forgiveness come very hard. Yet in his work as psychologist and writer, he always drew attention to the two tasks he saw facing all human beings: to become more conscious, and more spiritual. And forgiveness was an unavoidable component of that spirituality, he asserted.
As I unpack my parents' things, I'm continually offered a larger, wider perspective that can help me see their lives whole, view them in the context of what they faced, the best efforts and decisions that they were able to make. I see two young (i.e., my grown children's age) people coming into relationship in a time when no one knew what the next day would bring, who would live or die, or even what language everyone would be speaking, depending on the outcome of the war still known as "The Big One." The stories that my parents told, often only a fractional glimpse of something so much larger, take on a whole new meaning for me now. And whatever might challenge my own ability toward forgiveness is nudged in ways I can't ignore.
It's as though I'm watching movie-like vignettes of two people who, whatever their circumstances, troubles and often significant mistakes or missteps, nonetheless made a place for me in this world, and stuck with that commitment. As so many new little pieces of a bigger story come together, I'm reminded of a phrase from Rumi, so essential as to almost be stating the obvious, yet carrying a profound truth: "When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, this is certainly not like we thought it was."
Forgiveness can be a tough prospect in the face of the kinds of things that were still too painful for families like mine to even talk about. The disease of alcoholism is a great waster of lives, in so many ways.
Yet, as I contemplate and continue to uncover a broader view of the lives my parents lived, I see that so often, my own resistance to forgiveness seems to have been forged in a much younger perspective, formed at a stage of my life when the imprint of my parents' perceived omnipotence led me to believe that they were always in charge, in the know, in control of all situations. What I can share with them now is the sure knowledge that that was never true, and the humbling realization that, whatever the hurts, it is not, indeed, as I thought it was.
As I encounter again these two people who loved me in ways revealed new before me each day, I realize again that we don't know the full context of someone else's circumstances. But when we open up to these more, compassion inevitably follows. And, more often than not, we usually have to call upon Greater Help from beyond our own small selves to find our way toward true forgiveness, and the wondrous release that it brings.
It's been observed that many may draw back from forgiveness because they believe that it might go against the grain of justice, might excuse a wrong or deny its occurrence.
When we find a willingness to try to see beyond simply our own view about any situation, however, especially the actions of others, it seems to take away the power that our perception has to keep us in states that not only don't feel good, but impede our own progress, too.
— — —
Phyllis Edgerly Ring, mother of two, is a writer and editor. Her current book project addresses how adults can recognize and nurture children's spiritual nature. She is a former program director at Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine, and has been a member of the Baha'i Faith for more than 30 years. Email her at {email columns@bahai.us}columns@bahai.us{/email}. See the website of the Baha'is of the United States for more information. © Copyright 2008 by Phyllis Edgerly Ring.
And it's been kindled most deeply by a process that's become part of everyday life for me these days - sorting through boxes and boxes of my parents' belongings now that they've both gone on to whatever comes next.
For a while, I simply couldn't get to this activity. I moved the boxes into my home, where they accumulated steadily, forgotten in other rooms, most of them safely out of sight. Finally, when a new batch arrived and there was nowhere left to put them, I knew it was time to begin.
Who knew what doors this would open? It's been like falling into whole other worlds. There is information about my parents' lives that is surfacing for the first time, of course. There's an endless stirring of memories, which lead to a cascade of all kinds of feelings.
Inevitably, there are also the echoes of old hurts, things it would be easier not to remember. That, I am discovering, is an invitation to the humbling, nearly overwhelming freedom that forgiveness offers.
One author, Erik Blumenthal, has been a valued companion on my spiritual journey through the years, ever since something I read in one of his books knocked me right off the couch where I lay reading. All these years later, I can still remember the words on the page in front of me, which suggested that the person who comes to understand his parents can forgive the world. I went back and read that over again several times as I tried to grasp the very concept.
The author, who grew up Jewish in Nazi Germany, certainly knew a thing or two about pain, injustice and the kinds of deprivation and suffering that can make forgiveness come very hard. Yet in his work as psychologist and writer, he always drew attention to the two tasks he saw facing all human beings: to become more conscious, and more spiritual. And forgiveness was an unavoidable component of that spirituality, he asserted.
As I unpack my parents' things, I'm continually offered a larger, wider perspective that can help me see their lives whole, view them in the context of what they faced, the best efforts and decisions that they were able to make. I see two young (i.e., my grown children's age) people coming into relationship in a time when no one knew what the next day would bring, who would live or die, or even what language everyone would be speaking, depending on the outcome of the war still known as "The Big One." The stories that my parents told, often only a fractional glimpse of something so much larger, take on a whole new meaning for me now. And whatever might challenge my own ability toward forgiveness is nudged in ways I can't ignore.
It's as though I'm watching movie-like vignettes of two people who, whatever their circumstances, troubles and often significant mistakes or missteps, nonetheless made a place for me in this world, and stuck with that commitment. As so many new little pieces of a bigger story come together, I'm reminded of a phrase from Rumi, so essential as to almost be stating the obvious, yet carrying a profound truth: "When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, this is certainly not like we thought it was."
Forgiveness can be a tough prospect in the face of the kinds of things that were still too painful for families like mine to even talk about. The disease of alcoholism is a great waster of lives, in so many ways.
Yet, as I contemplate and continue to uncover a broader view of the lives my parents lived, I see that so often, my own resistance to forgiveness seems to have been forged in a much younger perspective, formed at a stage of my life when the imprint of my parents' perceived omnipotence led me to believe that they were always in charge, in the know, in control of all situations. What I can share with them now is the sure knowledge that that was never true, and the humbling realization that, whatever the hurts, it is not, indeed, as I thought it was.
As I encounter again these two people who loved me in ways revealed new before me each day, I realize again that we don't know the full context of someone else's circumstances. But when we open up to these more, compassion inevitably follows. And, more often than not, we usually have to call upon Greater Help from beyond our own small selves to find our way toward true forgiveness, and the wondrous release that it brings.
It's been observed that many may draw back from forgiveness because they believe that it might go against the grain of justice, might excuse a wrong or deny its occurrence.
When we find a willingness to try to see beyond simply our own view about any situation, however, especially the actions of others, it seems to take away the power that our perception has to keep us in states that not only don't feel good, but impede our own progress, too.
— — —
Phyllis Edgerly Ring, mother of two, is a writer and editor. Her current book project addresses how adults can recognize and nurture children's spiritual nature. She is a former program director at Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine, and has been a member of the Baha'i Faith for more than 30 years. Email her at {email columns@bahai.us}columns@bahai.us{/email}. See the website of the Baha'is of the United States for more information. © Copyright 2008 by Phyllis Edgerly Ring.