As a native of the Big Easy and proud student of a Jesuit university, I am all about trying to be perceptive, accepting and compassionate. However, a considerable number of recent incidents regarding people totally screwing me over have been piling up and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the concept of forgiveness and what the purpose of it is for.
I have heard dozens of times about all the chemical reasons behind feeling happy, sad, hungry, etc. However, I’ve never come across the scientific explanation for feeling mislead and betrayed. I also don’t know what prompts humans to feel the need to forgive those who have totally wronged them. Forgive and forget? What? Why?
Being an English major, I found myself going to the online Oxford English Dictionary — after all, it is the English Major Bible — to figure out what exactly forgiveness meant. However, I was starting to feel like the religion of writing had failed me. I didn’t understand the concept of “forgiveness” anymore then than I did before I looked it up.
“Pardon of a fault?” “Remission of a debt?” Really? What does that even mean? Drop the situation? Let it go? Act like it’s nothing or not a big deal? Why? What does that do? What does that solve? It doesn’t change what happened. “Dispossession or willingness to forgive?” Well, I wasn’t really in the mood. “To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses.” I’m not God. Next!
Unsatisfied, I looked up the definition of “forgive." Then I saw it: “To give up, cease to harbour (resentment, wrath). Also, to give up one's resolve (to do something).” Harbour, like protection. To keep safe and inside your wrath and resentment. Wrath, “extreme anger." Resentment, “bitter indignation of having been treated unfairly." Wow.
Suddenly I understood. Forgiveness is less about the screwer, and more about the screwee. If I let every time someone screw me over just sit inside and I feed it with anger and resentment, it’s only hurting myself. Every time my insides boil at the thought of what was done to me, of the people or the actions of the people that unjustifiably and unnecessarily hurt me — I am the sole person being negatively impacted. They’ll move on. No one can changed the past, so why hold on to it? My persistent, never-ending anger isn't going to punish the people who hurt me. Why should they care, after all? I was the one who as hurt, not them. I’ll just be left, alone, in a hurtful past, harboring resentment and wrath. I can't walk around moping, being petty or hoping for revenge. That’s not cute. That’s not attractive. That’s not fun or easy going. That doesn’t sound like a Jesuit value. That’s neither who I am, nor whom I would like to be. I guess when people hurt me, I just have to forgive them, not for the sake of them, but for the sake of me.
