Here is an article I wrote for a mediation newsletter. Note there are many ways
people use the word forgive, so the key is discerning the meaning intended by
the speaker or person who offers or wants it.
THE MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF FORGIVENESS
My understanding of forgiveness1 flowered while reading Laura Davis’s recent
book, I thought We’d Never Speak Again: The Road from Estrangement to
Reconciliation.2 Davis surveyed a territory that has only recently escaped the
confines of religion and theologians. Indeed, research centers on forgiveness
now exists at two universities and a few years ago Harvard convened a
conference on the topic.
Forgiveness deserves this attention:
Forgiving is reserved for serious betrayal and wrongs. It is distinguished
from excusing, which applies to less serious injuries or irritations. It is
also distinguished from pardoning, which simply releases the injurer from
punishment. Forgiving is not the same as accepting or understanding. Forgiving
is reserved for acts which, in the view of the one injured, are not acceptable
and not justifiable.3
Serious betrayal and wrongs, though long ago in time, may still be very active
to one of the parties and the basis for their reluctance to settle. When one of
the parties needs or expects an apology or seeks to be forgiven, “the past is
not dead. It is not even past.”4 By probing deeper into these hurts and the
meaning the parties place on forgiveness, you can increase the chance the
parties might be able to reconcile and agree to a settlement.
This article reviews the five main types of forgiveness.
1. One works alone to achieve unilateral forgiveness of the injurer. In this
approach to forgiveness one works on oneself to erase all desire for violent
revenge. One “absorbs the pain”5 of the injury and ends the cycle of violence.
To find this level of acceptance requires “work,” often listed in the
literature as a set of steps to take, or stages to live through.
2. Unilateral forgiveness that is a gift to the injured from the spiritual
realm.
People with strong spiritual or religious beliefs sometimes feel they have
been recipients of undeserved forgiveness from God:
They say, “I deserved condemnation for this nasty thing I did, but I got
forgiveness, and I’m grateful—and I really would like to give that gift of
freedom to the person who hurt me.”6
This type of forgiveness flows effortlessly from the injured to the injurer.
3. Unilateral forgiveness that represents a gift from the injured to the
injurer.
Some people spontaneously forgive as a gift to the harmer because it
strengthens the forgiver’s emotional or psychological well-being. Forgiveness
equals freedom to love:
"A process of reconciliation may take some time, as the other side has to
recognise its faults also. With forgiveness, however, I don’t need to wait or
waste any time. Forgiveness gives me freedom to love now. When we attain this
freedom, we realise that those who have done evil are themselves its victims."7
The first three meanings of forgiveness separate reconciliation from
forgiveness. For many people, though, forgiveness can only follow the injurer
acknowledging the harm done, at the very least. The last two meanings of
forgiveness expect something from the injurer.
4. Forgiveness is a gift from the injured to the injurer given after the
injurer acknowledges their actions. Some people forgive easily and quickly if
the injurer sincerely apologizes and asks forgiveness. This is a particularly
difficult type of forgiveness in a relationship where the injurer can cause
more harm. Though an injured party might quickly forgive, mediators can help
the parties set boundaries, time and place constraints, and other safeguards to
prevent additional harm.
5. Injured and injurer mutually work towards forgiveness. Serious wrongs and
betrayals, in this view of forgiveness, attack the very roots of what it means
to be a human being living in community among other human beings. The injurer
has a double duty, then—to work to win the forgiveness of the injured and to
show the wider community that they can again be trusted in free association
with other people. To earn the possibility of being forgiven “the perpetrator
must show the five R’s: recognition, remorse, repentance, restitution, and
reform.”8
This brief article has shown five shades of meaning for forgiveness. Being
sensitive to how past hurts can affect a party’s willingness to settle offers
you another place to probe when mediating disputes. Kenneth Cloke and Joan
Goldsmith remind mediators that the choice to forgive can make a big difference
to the parties and to ourselves—
"The eternal possibilities of love arise when we rebuild people’s boundaries
and support them, if they chose, in forgiving—but never forgetting—the
violations they have experienced or perpetrated. This love is simply a
reflection of our innate interconnectedness. It is what finally makes the
struggle to tell and hear conflict stories worthwhile."9
John Perkins, Ph.D., is a partner in Keep the Change. He helps organizations,
school districts, teams and boards craft and implement creative solutions to
their challenges. He can be reached at 206 524.4496 or johnp@xxxxxxxxxxxx.
1 This article is based on my presentation with the same title at the 2005 UW
Continuing Legal Education Alternative Dispute Resolution Conference held at
the UW Law School on April 29-30, 2005.
2 2002, New York, HarperCollins, “Chapter 9: The Question of Forgiveness,” pp.
265-292.
3 Rev. Douglas Showalter, 1997, Forgiveness Forum, available 2/13/05 at
http://www.vsg.cape.com/~dougshow/webdoc3.htm ;
4 William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun.
5 Robert Enright, Suzanne Freedman, and Julio Rique, 1998, in Robert Enright
and Joanna North, eds., Exploring Forgiveness, Madison, WI: University of
Wisconsin Press, pp. 54-55.
Perkins, Forgivness, page 1 of 3
6 Everett L. Worthington in “Spirituality and Health,” Winter 1999, available
2/13/05 at http://website.lineone.net/~andrewwhdknock/InsightsList.htm ;
7 Fr. Andrja Vrane, International Inter-Religious Seminar, Croatia 1998,
available 2/13/05 at
http://website.lineone.net/~andrewwhdknock/InsightsList.htm ;
Perkins, Forgivness, page 2 of 3
8 Donna, in Davis, loc. cit., p. 268.
9 Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith, 2003, Resolving Personal and
Organizational Conflict: Stories of
Transformation and Forgiveness, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, p. 172.
