Forgiveness = Forgetfulness?
Jun 14th, 2007 by Glenn
I have a pretty good memory. I can recall very detailed things from various times in my life – sights, sounds, smells, words, feelings – it’s all inside me – good times and bad. Now I make no claim that my memories are perfect. I recognize they represent only my own perspective – the perspective I had at the time and the perspective I have gained through the years. This all colors and biases my memories. But still, I have a vivid memory of many events, and I cherish those memories – the good and the bad.
What does it mean to forgive another person? Does it mean you have to forget what they did? Should you pray for a stupor of thought?
Because I remember things the way I do, and because I cherish those memories and love to reminisce, I often come across this idea that if I had truly forgiven the people I am reminiscing with (or about), then I would remember their imperfections and indiscretions no more. I think this is because there are certain things they would rather forget. They have moved on – they feel like they are being dragged backwards by those memories and they don’t like that feeling. That’s not the way I see it, but I want to be respectful of that perspective. I don’t want to drag people down by reminiscing — but I also don’t want to give up reminiscing.
But isn’t there value in remembering? Isn’t it possible to remember even awful things and be able to laugh about them, to recognize the role even the awful events played in your life and still be appreciative and grateful for them? Can I have my memory cake and eat it, too?
D&C 58: 42
42 Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.D&C 59: 12
12 But remember that on this, the Lord’s day, thou shalt offer thine oblations and thy sacraments unto the Most High, confessing thy sins unto thy brethren, and before the Lord.D&C 29: 3, 30
3 Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, that at this time your sins are forgiven you, therefore ye receive these things; but remember to sin no more, lest perils shall come upon you.D&C 121: 6
6 Remember thy suffering saints, O our God; and thy servants will rejoice in thy name forever.D&C 101: 9
9 Verily I say unto you, notwithstanding their sins, my bowels are filled with compassion towards them. I will not utterly cast them off; and in the day of wrath I will remember mercy.D&C 122: 7
7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
So much of folklore and the transmission of tradition is based upon remembering. Whether we are remembering personal narratives from our own life experiences, stories we have heard second- or third-hand about our relatives or other historically important people – whether it is parables, or proverbs, or folk songs, or legends, or customs, or any of the many other traditional forms that convey and transmit memory – isn’t there value to be found, even in the memories of awful mistakes and bad behavior?
Does forgiveness require forgetfulness? I don’t think so. But I’d like to know what you think.
Glenn,
I’m inclined to think that what is meant by forgiving through forgetting is not holding a grudge toward those who have wronged us. But certainly, we should remember some things for learning purposes if nothing else. For example, if you loan a neighbor some tools and they break them, you may not hold a grudge against them for breaking your tools but you’ll probably think twice about lending tools out to that neighbor if they should ask to borrow some again.
SR,
Interesting. Let me play devil’s advocate on this one (or maybe it is angel’s advocate) — If we have truly forgiven the neighbor, would we really hesitate to lend them tools again if they needed them? Is that in harmony with the “turn the other cheek, if they sure for your coat give your cloak also, forgive 70 times 7 times,” message of Christ-like forgiveness, etc etc?
I suppose the reasons the tools were broken in the first place might influence that answer a bit — whether the neighbor was careless, negligent, or if it was just an honest mistake. But it seems that there is still some judgment involved if we hold on to that past “offense” and filter our future interaction through it with the expectation that they will offend us again.
In the interest of pushing the argument a bit, let’s say that I have a friend whom I know to be a compulsive thief. Furthermore, let’s just a assume some sort of “irresistible urge” sort of thing is going on here, so that I have to excuse his thievery. One day he comes to me house and steals $100 from me. I might forgive him for taking it because I know that he doesn’t really mean to take it, but am I doing him any favors if I forget that he is a compulsive thief and leave $100 sitting out the next time? Or am I better off remembering what he’s done and taking steps to prevent him from repeating the act in the future? One could argue that the latter case is more charitable to him.
On the other hand, such reasoning could lead to the idea that we need to step in and prevent all actions through compulsive means because we don’t want anyone to sin. And that is a plan we know to have been proposed and rejected.
I think the answer may be that we remember the nature of those we deal with, even as we forgive them, and we do what we can do to prevent such situations from recurring, but we draw the line and trying to force some sort of goodness.
I’ve mentioned my relative who forgave her father for physical abuse. Would it really mean anything to say she forgave him if she didn’t recall what he had done? Instead she has accepted what he did as part of who he was and chosen to love him in spite of what he did. Forgiveness, to me, requires knowledge and a conscious decision to let the Atonement work and make up the difference. It isn’t closing one’s eyes…
If God forgot something, wouldn’t that be something he doesn’t know anymore? But if God is omniscient, how could there be something he doesn’t know? So I suspect in this case the “forgetting” is not literal, but is more in the sense that those sins just don’t matter anymore.
I’ve always thought of forgiving not as forgetting, but of having good feelings towards a person who has hurt you; wishing him well. I think both sides are right. We can’t literally forget the act that has caused us pain, and for our future protection, as has been mentioned before, it’s best we don’t. The forgetting I think we’re supposed to do is to forget the emotion, the pain, the anger, the desire for revenge, and all of those other nasty emotions associated with being wronged.
One of the difficulties I have noted when the topic of forgiveness comes up is that the one who has been hurt sometimes feels that forgiving the offender means he/she is being asked to ‘act like the hurt didn’t matter’ when in fact it did— minimizing the hurtful act and thus their own life experience. I have seen people become confused in thinking that if an offense is forgotten it means it didn’t really matter– The little I understand about justice and mercy seems to indicate to me that because I don’t have the whole picture of ‘truth’ (knowledge of what was, is and will be) I can canker my own soul by Not forgiving– by ‘remembering’ the offiense.
I think to forgive and forget means letting the ‘justice’ be with God, let go of retribution; be clear that forgiving doesn’t mean what someone did that hurt was ‘ok’– but trusting (having faith) that there IS ultimate justice and mercy– It relieves us of the burden of carrying anger– It even helps our physical health to forgive and not carry offense through remembering (hanging on to anger). I agree with Jessaway, I think to ‘forget’ means to let go of the emotion associated with the act. But choosing to Be Smart as Pres Hinckley would say.
Pondering,
You struck a nerve here. Forgive the lengthy epistle:
I like the idea of letting the justice be with God – that is always a good policy. Now weeding out those people who think they ARE god, well….
I think forgiveness – or the perception of forgiveness – can get very tricky in those rare occasions (is it really that rare?) when the person who has committed the offense makes a rhetorical lick-and-a-promise attempt at repentance and then doesn’t understand why the offended person is still choosing to be offended.
The offender, seeking to be rid of the burden of offense, says and does the things that they have been taught to say and do in church, and they wash their hands of it, and feel liberated, and they move on. But too many times they don’t really take the time to explore exactly what they have done – they don’t really acknowledge or understand or appreciate the impact it has had on so many lives – they don’t really change – they just feel better.
I think this is a part of our church culture – a traditional machine of “ask for repentance and receive forgiveness” which can be abused, intentionally or not. The offender is allowed to feel better and “move on” and essentially hide from the consequences of their actions as if the consequences simply –whisk! – blow away completely (like those leafs in Camelot), at night, of course.
But while the offender may have moved on in their own lives, they haven’t really fixed what they broke – and then when the people who were broken still feel hurt, it only makes the original offense more poignant when the “repentant offender” points to the machine and tells them that their lingering pain means that they just haven’t forgiven the right way, or that by remembering the offense they are trying to drag the “repentant person” back into the muck and cankering their own hearts in the process, keeping themselves from more God-like understanding which their evident lack of forgiveness indicates to be the true state of their unforgiving soul.
May I quote the Church Lady here without fear of punishment? “How conveeeeeenient.”
Maybe, as you suggest, the person resists forgiving because they feel that forgiving is an acknowledgment that it didn’t really matter. Maybe they resist forgiving because the offender’s repentance felt phony.
OR… Maybe they DID forgive (in the Jessawhy way – happy for their happiness, no desires for revenge) but they also have learned (in the Simonds Ryder way) not to lend their tools to that neighbor anymore – but the neighbor has been through the machine and they don’t understand why in the world this person is not lending the tools anymore. It must be because they are still holding on to the past and are still so angry and cankering their soul by not forgiving. There are many potentially paralyzing possibilities – it is easy to get Lost in them. And we can’t all be John Locke.
To me, true repentance and forgiveness include the ability to talk about the offense, not burry it. It includes the ability to remember honestly, to remorse occasionally, to laugh and joke about it frequently (using humor as both a distancing tool and a channel for any lingering or recurring aggression that might arise towards the original offense – it can also be a way of saying “let’s not go through that again” if you are getting close to going through it again). For me, I want to be able to do all of those things, and in the end, the measure of true forgiveness for me is to be able to say “I love you and I wish you all the best” and mean it.
There are some nice stories and perspectives on forgiveness and rememberabnce by MCQ over at BCC.