Lenten Forgiving and Forgetting

They are the two unanswerable questions. More difficult than the final in a doctoral program in Astrophysics.

Well, one question is a little easier to answer: “How do I forget?”

I enjoy the expression on students’ faces when I tell them, “Just go four blocks south on Red Road. On your left. The Palmetto Hardware store. Get a ballpeen hammer and, if you hit yourself hard enough in the head to crack your skull in a bunch of places, you just might destroy the memory.”

Truth is: Forgetting is beyond difficult, especially if we are attempting to “forget” a violation of Justice committed against ourself or someone we cherish or a profound personal loss, injury or trauma. We humans just don’t forget. 

Even more difficult is the question “How do I forgive….?”

Please God, I will die before telling someone that they “must forgive” or “just have to forgive” and “move on.”

As children, we were taught about the “gift of Faith.” That, ultimately, Faith is a “gift from God” and clearly not everyone receives the gift. In the same way, the ability to forgive is also a gift from God – given spontaneously to some and not (perhaps in some circumstances, never) to others. 

I admire and respect the surviving parents or children of horrific mass shootings like Pulse and the Route 91 Harvest Festival or Sandy Hook who are able to forgive. They are truly grace-filled. 

At the same time, I understand those who cannot forgive, whose pain is simply too profound, too all-encompassing, too spirit- and spirituality-choking. 

And, when they ask how they are to forgive, how they can forgive, I apologize because the only honest answer is “Don’t. Don’t try to force it. Forgiveness is the result of grace and grace is a gift from God and He doesn’t have to give it to anyone or everyone.”

Learn from the example of Jesus. In the Gospel of Luke, after being arrested, tried, condemned, humiliated, scourged, crowned with thorns, forced to carry his cross, after being crucified and hung for almost three hours, he was not only in unspeakable pain, but barely able to breath. Each breath must have been overwhelmingly painful; each word demanded efforts beyond imagination. Yet, he managed to pray “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do?

It would have been so much easier to look at his crucifiers, his tormenters and say “I forgive you.” Three words. Not ten. I’m not being sarcastic. Not blasphemous. I’m serious. Three words or ten?

I choose to believe that in the human condition – at that moment, overwhelmed by the agony of crucifixion and the emotional pain of separation for all those whom he loved – Jesus did not forgive because he could not.

But, he prayed.  

“But pray for the person who offended you,” I answer.

“But, Father! But… but… but…”

“I didn’t say pray long.

“You don’t have to pray for him/her/them to win the lottery or inherit the home of their dreams from an unknown long-lost relative or get a flat tire.

“Try praying ‘O Lord, I pray for _____ and I will let you, O Lord, finish my prayer, because if I go any further, I might start to get nasty.’” That’s an honest prayer. Sometimes, it may be the best and most honest prayer you – we - can say.

I remind my questioner that prayer doesn’t change History or Nature or Nature’s God. Instead, if we pray unceasingly, even for the person whom we cannot forgive, if we remain open to the gift of grace, perhaps, in God’s time not ours, we may receive the gift of the ability to forgive. If we pray with open hearts, the God who knows what we need even better and more perfectly than we do will grant that need. Perhaps not in our time. Perhaps not at instant, but when and as we least expect it.