The past twelve months has been quite a year for public apologies and expressions of regret. Some of Australia’s leading actors, churchmen, sportsmen, TV hosts, banking CEOs and politicians have all fallen from grace and to varying degrees thrown themselves on the public’s willingness to forgive, hoping to repair reputations, save careers and avoid further personal and family pain.
All of us have known the value of being forgiven and felt the power of forgiving others. It is a transaction we were introduced to whilst still very young, when ‘say sorry’ seemed to accompany any hint of wrongdoing. For those of us who have been particularly fortunate receiving forgiveness is a gift that has often blessed our lives. It arises in life’s most ordinary moments and everyday relationships. It may be implicit in the accommodation that follows harsh words between a parent and child, or in the compromise offered by a work colleague. It may be shown by a partner, who despite betrayal, still find it possible to offer the gentle benediction of personal forgiveness.
Because living in community is challenging and often brings conflict, the giving and receiving of forgiveness, can, if we allow it, often grace our days. A friend forgoes retaliation to an alcohol-fuelled insult, a daughter ignores a mother-in-law’s harassment over the wedding plans and a professional colleague agrees to forgive and forget a negligent conversation. Its faces are endlessly varied. Its power is to reset relationships and deflect escalation in conflicts.
Forgiveness is the currency of human relationships, a protective pressure valve and a sign of the optimism at work in every day life; it comes from a positive belief that we can be better than we appear, that we can go beyond behaviour that may, in the past, tripped into open conflict. You see it at work everywhere we gather. Look at the netball courts and football fields on Saturday mornings and guess at the unstated apology between parent and teenage children after the argument the night before. We learn early that apologies can be unstated but they must be sincere.
Every day across our nation there are a million examples of individuals freely giving away the justifiable resentment they feel at being wronged. Some are masters at the gentle art of understanding and forgiveness. On the highway, in the workplace or at home; wherever they are, they show a special ability for clemency.
True, others find the giving or the acceptance of forgiveness hard. Some have a preference to hang on to their resentment and protect it from the grace that would allow it to dissipate. Think of family disputes over the guest lists at weddings or clumsy comments taken as insults at funerals that grow in the retelling through the years. We may inherently know that this stubborn holding on to past wrongs, real or imagined, can bring nothing that is good into our lives but find it just too challenging to let go. We have nurtured that resentment for too long, encouraged its malignancy, too often, for it to be allowed to be easily forgiven.
So neighbourhood disagreements ferment and grow far beyond the fence line dispute or noise complaint that was their origin. Sibling rivalries fester over years and grow into something far beyond their humble beginnings. Often participants must know the damage being done but seem incapable of withdrawal from the conflict. Standing sentinel over the justice of their resentment and anger, the only option they see is to further harden their heart. Surely some enjoy the sense of offended outrage that the dispute allows and stay caught within the maze of their own creation unwilling to take the turn that leads to the exit.
Thankfully, this behaviour is not the norm and most of us are stunned by the disciplined malevolence it demands. These intense black holes of resentment are exceptions to the normal state in which most of us live.
Others have suffered too grievously, too often and for too long for their forgiveness to be easily or maybe ever given. Some perhaps abused survivors feel a hurt so deep that the thought of any forgiveness to the perpetrator must seem like a further betrayal, especially when there is no admission or apology being offered.
Thankfully, we are social creatures who are hard wired to forgive, if not to forget and be reconciled with each other. If it wasn’t so, all of our personal and familial relationships and work partnerships would be characterized by continuing resentment, conflict and bitterness. Forgiveness is the default position that most take through life, forever willing to say sorry and apologize for perceived wrongdoing and on the other side to always be open to a genuine request for mercy. An exception, of course seems to be those high profile public figures who struggle in seeking forgiveness for their very public failings.
That struggle is partly because they too often break the basic rules of forgiveness. They forget that the public expects forgiveness should be requested and earned by true remorse and change. They often forget that humility plays a central role in all true forgiveness. Thus seeking forgiveness places them in a powerless and unfamiliar position most have forgotten. Further, our community demands the penitent be genuine in seeking forgiveness and truthful in their remorse. We like to feel that those in privileged roles mean the words they say. If it is forced or formulaic it won’t make the grade.
The public is also suspicious if they sense an expectation of deliverance. Too often those seeking indulgence, expect it to be granted almost without asking. In that, they reveal a tin ear, a loss of connection to the very audience they seek mercy from.
September 2018
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