Forgiving Others
Listen: “The Heart of the Matter” by Don Henley
Many of you know that I have been a cyclist for decades. There have been years when I have ridden over 10,000 miles in the Northland of Kansas City, Missouri on my road bike in one year. In my peak competitive years, I would log more miles on my bike than my truck.
When I first started cycling on roads, people were not texting and driving. Yet, I still found riding thousands of miles on the road year after year was extremely dangerous. A significant percentage of people driving cars and trucks on the road display animosity towards cyclists who ride on the road. I have had people try to run me off the road, curse at me, flip me off, throw food at me, and throw beer cans at me. It’s truly shocking how much anger and road rage gets directed towards cyclists.
One time I was riding down a country road with a friend on Interurban Road south of Camden Point, Missouri. No cars were on the road going either direction. An elderly lady came up behind us, honked her horn at us, slowed her car down to our speed, rolled her window down, and proceeded to spew the F-bomb at us for ridding our bikes on the road. I looked her straight in the eye and said: “Great grandmas shouldn’t talk that way!” She flipped me off, dropped some more F-bombs, and sped away.
Another time I was doing a sixty-mile solo road ride in the winter. I was on a country road north of Trimble, Missouri when a cold front blew in and started sleeting on me. I was two hours from home, and I was a little irritated at myself for getting myself into this situation. In my mind, I was thinking: “Fred, you’re an idiot. This is so stupid.” A lonely truck pulled up behind me, slowed down to my speed, and rolled his window down. He looked at me and said: “You’re an idiot!” I said: “I was just thinking the same thing. Thanks for the encouragement!”
At the heart of Jesus’ message are some of the most challenging teachings in the history of Homo sapiens on planet earth—challenging yet vitally important for healing and thriving as humans. Love is central to Jesus. Love God. Love your neighbors. Love yourself. And love your enemies (most challenging), which always involves forgiveness and creative non-violent resistance towards oppressors.
At the heart of the Jesus’ Prayer (The Lord’s Prayer) is a calling to live in a spirit of forgiveness. In effect, we are called to adopt forgiveness as a way of life: “Forgive us our trespasses (sins/debts) as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matthew 6:12). Our capacity for love and joy and freedom are directly correlated to our capacity to forgive. The way of forgiveness is not always easy, and sometimes extremely difficult.
It’s normal to armor up with anger, bitterness, and revenge when we are hurt to protect ourselves. And yet, permanently armoring up with anger and bitterness erodes our capacity for flourishing. “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die,” according to Anne Lamott. What is forgiveness and how do we live into it?
Forgiveness is not…. Before we describe the way of forgiveness, let’s make sure we understand what it is not. Forgiveness is not condoning harmful behavior. By forgiving others, we are not condoning hatred, oppression, abuse, violence, racism, bigotry, sexism, cruelty, homophobia, murder, genocide, unkindness, or people cussing out cyclists! Forgiveness is not forgetting. We bear the scars of hurt emotionally and physically (read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk), but those wounds can heal over time. Forgiveness is not living without healthy boundaries. Some people are chronic abusers, manipulators, and offenders. We can learn to forgive, set healthy boundaries, and practice non-violent resistance towards oppressors at the same time.
The spirit of forgiveness. Forgiveness as a lifestyle creates space in our lives so that we can move forward from the hurts of the past to thrive in love, joy, and freedom. Forgiveness is about letting go, letting go of the armor (bitterness and anger) that we put in place to protect ourselves from future hurt. It’s letting go of the debt that we feel someone owes us. We longed for a good parent, a good friend, or a good partner but instead we are reeling from the hurt inflicted by those who should have loved us. To quote Anne Lamott again, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having a better past.”
Deep down in our hearts, we long for love. We long for belonging. We long for connection. We long to be at peace with ourselves, others, and all living beings. That’s a part of our inherent dignity and worth as humans. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, we are “made in the image and likeness of God.” So, we long for love, beauty, creativity, and generosity which flourishes in the humus of forgiveness as it nurtures healing and post-traumatic growth.
Our gift to the world is to compost our hurts and suffering and give rise to wildflowers bedazzling the mountains of our grief and pain. French philosopher and author Albert Camus said, “We all carry within us places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves and others.”
Forgiveness is a delicate process. In the end, prolonged anger, bitterness, revenge, and violence creates an endless cycle of pain and suffering. Trauma upon trauma. Hate in return for hate. Forgiveness is not an easy task, but it’s the only generative way forward. It takes time to grieve the losses caused by hurt, abuse, and violence. We remember and grieve. We long for justice and mercy. We recognized that everything is in a process of creation, death, and re-creation. Even our body is sloughing off billions of skin cells, organ cells, and blood cells everyday, while at the same time creating new cells to replace the old ones.
Our body is in a constant state of renewal. Why not our heart?
It’s risky for sure. Sometimes I want to escape it all, get off the grid, and move to an isolated mountain location and commune with nature until I die. But I often recall one of my favorite quotes from C. S. Lewis:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness [pain or sorrow]. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2024
