Over the past few articles, I’ve been exploring the mysterious world of getting your mental, emotional and spiritual house in order through the essential process of reconciliation. I’ve often stated that midlife brings about a deep spiritual transformation in those who allow the process to move forward. It serves as the doorway into the world of maturity which takes us as far beyond adulthood as adulthood once took us away from childhood. Yet, this transformation that brings us an unparalleled measure of both inner strength and serenity is impossible without first cleaning up the wreckage that we’ve created all around us by our mistakes and/or poor judgment. Reconciliation is not optional for anyone who desires to grow and develop.
We’ve been following the masterful lead of Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas who wrote the book, The Five Languages of Apology. We’ve explored at some depth the first four “languages” that need to be spoken before our relationships can be healed: “I messed up!” “I’m sorry!” “What can I do?” and “I won’t do that again!” Yet, if we find that we’re among those who want a ‘quick fix’ and instant relief from guilt without having t0 do the hard work that it entails, we may be looking for the other (be it our human relationships, our relationship with our Higher Power, or our relationship with our own selves) to release us from the consequences of our actions gratuitously. Whether or not we’re ready to admit it, we seek forgiveness; whether it will have any meaning for us or not (that is: whether or not it’ll make any practical difference) totally depends on the effort that we’ve been willing to make to create positive change.
Your guilt forces you to labor under a heavy burden. There’s no doubt that experiencing forgiveness relieves you of it. It’s no wonder you’re anxious to hear the words that can set you free from the bondage of inequity that you experience as soon as you realize that you’ve made a mess. Some who read this will be aware that I am a retired Catholic priest. Both the theology and practice around what is now known as the “Sacrament of Reconciliation” (we used to call it “Confession”) respond at the deepest possible levels to our need to make right whatever damage we may have mistakenly or deliberately caused. The weight of our guilt presses us down until we hear the words of absolution: “I forgive you!”
In my experience, for those relatively few for whom the Sacrament of Reconciliation was s0ught as the final stage in the mental, emotional, and spiritual process of reconciliation, my role as representative of the spiritual community could not have provided me with more of a sense of humility, honor, and satisfaction. I spoke not as an individual, nor as a representative of God, but as a representative of the spiritual community (the Church) of men and women who struggled together within the context of the grace of God. In their name (in your name), I spoke words of forgiveness and reconciliation. As I have said before: we seek and find reconciliation with God and with our own selves only through reconciliation with one another. What a privilege it was to be the representative and ‘minister’ of that reconciliation!
Once you have progressed through the stages of acceptance, acknowledgment, restitution, and conversion (growth), only then will you be ready to ask for and to receive true reconciliation and forgiveness (and the release from the burden of your sense of guilt). Yet the responsibility for taking this last step does not lie in those who were injured by your choices and behaviors: as through this whole process, the responsibility rests entirely on you. Although forgiveness is always a gift of love (something to remember when it’s our turn to forgive another), it’s up to you to ask for it.
Why is it that we so often fail to receive the help that we so ardently desire from others and from our Higher Power? Isn’t it because too often we’re simply afraid to ask for it? This fear of asking for help isn’t something that pertains only to men and their unwillingness to ask for directions. We are all scared of asking for help: scared that we’ll appear weak; scared that we’ll be refused; scared that we’ll be taken advantage of when we’re feeling down and particularly weak and vulnerable. However, the fear that prevents us from asking for the help that we really need — and keeps us from asking for the forgiveness that we want — is just another form of arrogance: if you only knew just how vulnerable and needy I feel, you’d never respect me again. These, of course, are lies of the ego, and they keep us enslaved by the chains of guilt so long as we listen to them. It requires true courage to present yourself to another in all your unvarnished nakedness. Yet, without it, forgiveness, however available it may be, remains distant and stuck.
Please note: none of this involves “punishment.” Some people believe that forgiveness is impossible without punishment, correction, and vengeance. Some are unwilling to let others off the hook without imposing “punitive damages.” When we are guilty of this kind of thinking, what we’re really doing is looking for pay-backs. Gandhi clearly saw the insanity of such an approach when he said, “An eye for an eye only ends by making the whole world blind.” Not only does asking for forgiveness authentically require great humility, granting that forgiveness requires it equally so. To make things right — to reestablish order in the universe — we are required to request and to grant forgiveness with equal measures of humility and humanity. Such is the measure of our love; such is the measure of our spiritual maturity.
Vengeance does not help the object of our punishment; it only forces that person deeper into victimhood. Furthermore, exacting vengeance creates a second guilty perpetrator: the vengeance-seeker her- or himself. When we we seek vengeance from another, or to punish another, or when we rejoice when others are made to “pay” for their “crimes,” we commit our own crime: that of setting ourselves up as superior to others and, therefore, of refusing to recognize in another our common (and inalienable) humanity. Humanity is an absolute — a superlative. When we judge another, we thereby deny them their humanity (no one can be “more human” than another without the other being seen as inhuman: consider the Nazi treatment of the Jews and the enslavement of people of color). In every case, those who set themselves above others as their masters or teachers or jailers or judges, end by denying their own humanity. Forgiveness has no place there.
As someone committed to maturity and spiritual growth, it’s your job to ask for forgiveness when you realize that you’ve messed up. It’s the singular exit point from your own personal hell of guilt. It’s your responsibility. What about the person whom you’ve wronged or harmed? Do they have to forgive? Can they refuse? What would that do to you?
The answer is, yes, they may refuse to forgive you, but that will have absolutely no affect on you (other than foretelling the future of your mutual relationship). When someone refuses to forgive, s/he chooses incarceration in the prison of vindictive resentment. Refusal to forgive locks that person into a perpetual reliving of the past, while the person asking is free to rejoice in a present pregnant with the prospects of a new beginning. Once you’ve asked for another’s forgiveness, your job of error correction is ended, and your commitment to building on that experience has begun regardless of whether or not your request for forgiveness is ever answered.
In short, whenever you do wrong, whether mistakenly or on purpose, all that you need to turn the experience from a failure to a victory is to set your ego and its fears aside, go deeply and honestly into your humility, and focus on the person you shall become once you recognize and embrace the lesson that’s yours to learn.
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown
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