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

Technorati Tags:
forgiveness, reconciliation, absolution, vengeance, punishment, guilt
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |

What is the nature of these vitally important relationships. We live in a three-dimensional world, and our relationships, too, are three-dimensional (whether or not we are aware of them). Let’s take a brief look at what it means to be in relationship.

At the center of our relational awareness are all those other people who share our lives and/or our consciousness. Our significant other or spouse, our parents and/or children, our extended family, our ‘family of choice’ (our BFFs), our acquaintances (our fellow-workers, those we hire, those who serve our needs and wants). Then, there are those nameless faces who we encounter as we go about the work of living: the other Joes and Janes ‘on the bus’ (so to speak): the ‘extras’ who share the stage with us for a moment or two, interact with us (or not) and then depart, never to be seen again. They’re all there. But there are many more ‘out there’ — people who never even enter into our awareness or consideration. These are all the people who share a relationship with the people who interact with us.

Our behavior not only affects those with whom we share a relationship, like ripples in a pond, what we think, say, and do has a very real affect on those unseen people in our world who are affected by those we affect. A parent becomes angry at a child because s/he has had a “hard day” because the boss was in a foul mood. The boss is in a foul mood because one of his customers pulled a dirty trick on him, and caused him to lose the business. The unreasonable customer is not even aware that the crying child exists, but you can trace the effects of her/his actions directly. As we shall see, there is no such thing as an ‘isolated’ incident: everything we do has consequences in the world of our relationships.

The second ‘dimension’ of our three-dimensional world of relationships refers to the connection that we maintain with our Higher Power (whom I shall refer to here as God). My personal experience has been that the Judeo-Christian belief system seems to bridge the chasm between the divine and the human better than any other system of which I am aware, and that is an absolutely essential connection for building and maintaining a vital spiritual life. The Judeo-Christian traditions insist on the fact that our relationship with God exists only in and through our relationship with our fellows. “Whatsoever you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do to me,” Jesus is quoted as saying. “Where two or more of you are gathered in my name, there am I within/among you (en humin).” Genuine spirituality discovers the divine within the human. Therefore, our relationship with God stands or falls as a direct consequence of how we interrelate with one another . . . particularly those whom we find most troublesome!

The third dimension of our three-dimensional world of relationships is the one that I fear we ignore and neglect the most: our relationship with ourselves. Most of us would break up with a partner who treated us the way we treat ourselves. We’re hard on ourselves, uncompromising, merciless, speak to ourselves rudely, punish ourselves, and, what’s perhaps worst of all, we withhold affection, kindness, and appreciation from ourselves. At the same time, we tend to be neglectful and ridiculously permissive. It would literally be a criminal offense if we raised a child the same way we tend to parent ourselves. At the same time, we seem to be unaware that we are responsible not only for living up to our social responsibilities, but we are also even more responsible for holding up our own side of those responsibilities. Every time we hurt or neglect our relationship with ourselves, we make ourselves less available to show up for all those relationships that we talked about with others.

There is no such thing as a ‘solitary sin.’ (We define ‘sin’ as a deliberate choice of an unworthy end, or unworthy means to attain an end, worthy or not. ‘Sin’ is distinguished from ‘mistake’ by the willful, conscious choice.) Every bad choice we make first of all damages our relationship with our (present and future) selves. Our choices can injure or even kill any possibility we may otherwise have had of reaching our God-given destiny. Whether or not we are aware of them, others (may hundreds or thousands of people) will be directly affected by our choices. People we don’t even know depend on us; and when we are not the people we could have been (and should have been), we let them down. Finally, God is manifest in and through these people. Your choices cannot ‘hurt’ God; but they can injure or destroy your relationship with God! We can only pray for forgiveness for those who turn their wrath on others in the name of God, because most truly, “they know not what they do.”

In the past two articles, I’ve discussed the first two approaches to cleaning up the wreckage that we’ve caused by our bad choices: first, by acknowledging our responsibility for our mess, then, by expressing genuine sorrow for what we’ve done. Now that we’ve taken a look at the far-reaching effects of our actions, we may want to deepen that acknowledgment, and expand our expressions of sorrow. After that, it’s time to take the third step: into action. It’s time to do the work necessary to heal all these injured and broken relationships. That starts with asking, “What can I do to make it up to you?” Then, it requires listening to the answer (not only from family, friends and acquaintances, but also from ourselves and from God) and then doing something to make amends.

There is always something you can do. You can start by changing your mind and working to renew and repair your attitudes. Then you can renew your commitment to pay more and better attention to the most important relationships in your life. You can work to heal yourself. What’s that going to take? Look at yourself as if you were a third person and ask yourself what this person needs; then do something to provide that. Get help! One of the most powerful (and under-used) tools for positive change that you possess is accountability. Use a trusted friend, a coach, a mentor, a therapist, etc. to provide you with that accountability. It can work magic! Then work to appreciate better the relationships that you have. Each one takes time and effort. Do whatever is necessary to repair, heal, and strengthen each one (regardless of how unimportant you may think some to be).

One final caveat: don’t think that just because you’ve prayed, “Oh, God, I’ve sinned and I’m sorry!” that you’ve done anything significant. What happens when you get to stage three and pray, “What can I do to make it up to you?” God is going to say (and has already told you) what needs to be done: “Heal your relationships with one another.” So long as any relationship in your life (including your relationship with yourself) remains unhealed, your relationship with God remains injured or broken. Reality doesn’t respect doctrine: whatever your personal beliefs may be, spirituality demands that your relationship with your Higher Power be healed in and through your other relationships. “Whatsoever you do to the least of my sisters and brothers, you do to me.”

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2010 H. Les Brown

Technorati Tags:
relationship, wrong, sin, mistake, choice, reconciliation, healing, spirituality
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us | Yahoo | BlinkList | Spurl | reddit | Furl |