Faith, Forgiveness and Shock
I am often humbled by the kindness of my readers here. Not only do many of you offer me praise and kindness in the comments, but many of you keep me in your prayers, which I find comforting even if I am not a person of faith. As I’ve said, I’ve leaned into it, but my brain is such that I have never been able to shake my lifetime of being a skeptic.
I am lucky that so many of you like what I write or my podcasts, that you get something out of this Substack, even when they’re self-pitying and whiny. It gives me a sense of purpose and that is a good reason to wake up every day. So thank you again.
Meanwhile, I was stunned to find that just after posting the last piece about how all of my advertising had been wiped, I got an email from one brave studio who decided to advertise on my website anyway, even with everything that has happened. I couldn’t believe it. I’m still in shock. Good luck or the power of prayer, who’s to say?
I also read a piece from a favorite Substack of mine
at Deeply Boring. It’s such a lovely bit of writing, so clear and profound. I’ll quote some of it here:It is written that “love keeps no record of wrongs”. But we hold fast to our sense of injury when we are wronged. I am no stranger to it, having endured racist taunts (just last week: “China China!”), unprovoked violence (shoved into the closet wall in 5th grade), and betrayal (a friend declining to take my side so as to accrue status with my antagonist). I do not solicit your sympathy; others, including you, have endured far worse. I recite them as indicators of our common experience: of the outrage, indignation, and pain we feel when we are hurt, intentionally or not, by others.
We are taught that it is healthy to “forgive and forget”. And indeed it is. Harboring resentment often hurts you more than the target of your anger. They have perhaps moved on, but you are still stuck here, frozen in place, nursing thoughts of vengeance, hoping for their comeuppance. In holding fast, you allow them to hurt you again and again, the original harm multiplied in the relentlessness of the reliving. If forgiveness is not easy, forgetting is nearly impossible. It is one thing to let go of the pain clutched in your clenched fist. It is another to fully wipe away its memory. For deep cuts leave scars: on trees, on flesh, and especially in hearts.
But there is always another side. If you are the one who has wronged, and you regret the pain you have caused, you are also burdened: with guilt for your action, shame for your behavior, and self-loathing for your failing. These are also destructive. When your inner voice turns negative, you shun good things and tolerate unwarranted hurt because you feel you are undeserving. What your heart truly craves is to be set free through the forgiveness of the one you have wronged. But the nature of such chains is that they cannot be worked off, much as we may try.
Most of us need both to forgive and to be forgiven, but our desire to reset can feel futile. Where then, does hope come from?
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He's right!
Refusing to forgive another is like drinking poison in the hope that other is harmed.
Forgiveness is for one's own benefit, not the offender's.
That said, one can forgive without forgetting – in fact, it is important to remember, lest you allow yourself to be harmed again. I forgive what that relative did, but I will never let him within a hundred yards of my wife's grandchildren, even supervised.
For those of us who profess to be of faith, we are called to forgive – it is not optional.
For my part, it's answered prayer.
Should begin a faith journey, you will be well-served by your very healthy skepticism.
Consider CS Lewis.
In 2002 I had nothing. Well, I had something. A conviction for domestic battery. My faith brothers at stgiles.org said I had no way forward that involved retribution. I *wanted* my pound of flesh. Surrendered that to Christ and agreed that my best hope was to behave, to forgive and give grace to her. Second best thing I ever did. The first best thing was to become my son's father.
Doubts. Doubt is deeply Christian. We have always been a people who question what we believe. Churches that demand thoughtless devotion devoid of doubt feel inauthentic to me. You can join us with your doubts. We have answers.