To Forgive

To forgive
To let go
Trust
Dare

Not hold onto the feeling of righteousness
To lay down one’s arms
Relinquish ammunition

Knowing one is taking a chance
Taking down the wall

Easier to say sorry
Than to forgive

This beautiful poem by my friend Heather first made me think of problems in relationships. I even wrote the first draft of this blog post contemplating my 20+ year long relationship with my wife Malin. But as Malin read the poem, she told me it made her think differently. She thought that the meaning of forgiveness is a deeper topic than what we have experienced together as a couple. Then she reminded me of the movie The Shack that we watched together some years ago. It rendered us to watched it again together last night. And perhaps she is right. Forgiveness goes deeper. At least for us. Not to say that this poem cannot relate to relationships problems, but perhaps it is a story for others to tell.

I can really recommend the movie The Shack if you have not seen it. It is a beautiful but tragic story about a father who lost his child and his long path to forgiving the man who caused it. I guess the quest to forgive someone does not become any more difficult than this. How can you possibly forgive someone who killed your child? I don’t have any children myself so I can only imagine that pain. The movie takes the Christian perspective with the New Testament central values of love and forgiveness. I won’t tell the full story of the movie if you want to watch it. Instead, I’d like to focus for the remainder of this blog on my own experiences, a much narrowed down scope compared to the extreme narrative of this movie. Forgiveness in the smallest of worldly details. But also, perhaps thoughts that more people can relate to. Also, the topic of forgiveness is such a wide topic so it’s hardly possible to cover all aspects of it in one tiny blog post.

I’d like to focus on the last two lines:

Easier to say sorry
Than to forgive

There are some very interesting aspects and possibly contradictions in these two lines if you start thinking about it. My immediate rational thought is that it is easy to go for the quick solution in a conflict scenario and only pretend that you are sorry. Even to yourself. But by doing so, there will be a lingering feeling of resentment and grudge that will come back to haunt you. And in the long run, the quick solution to a problem will turn out to be no solution at all. But it raises the interesting question of when it is best to try and solve the problem immediately (if possible). To take a stand for what you believe to be right, and when it is best to “turn the other cheek” so to speak. Obviously, it depends on the situation. Let me give you a simple example of the latter dating back to a teenage memory of mine:

In my youth, I was out partying with a friend one night. We were just out there on the dance floor dancing like everyone else around us. Then suddenly, two guys walked up to us and started to pick a fight. Where I grew up, it was not uncommon for some young people to want to get into a fight to prove whatever they thought needed to be proven. Testosterone syndrome. I tried to calm things down and then … WHAM! One of the guys suddenly gave me a headbutt. Luckily, he missed my eyebrow and any vital area, so it did not hurt at all. I must admit, despite the shock I felt, the surprise in his face that I was still standing was satisfying. Next they wanted us to step out from the dance floor to finish what they started. Luckily for us, it was quite easy to shout through the music: ‘No thanks. We’re just gonna keep on dancing here instead’. In the end, they gave up and took off leaving us alone. That was it. No harm, no fowl.

When analyzing this situation afterwards, there are two possible solutions to this scenario. The first one taking a stand and agreeing to the invited fight. A stupid choice I still think, but if we had been born with a Bruce Lee talent, which we were not, maybe winning such a fight would have convinced these people to not do this again. The true action movie hero scenario I’d say. Sadly though, I think in reality, them losing a fight would not solve the main issue these guys had. They would probably just train harder for the next occasion to have a higher likelihood of winning the fight they picked with some other innocent people. The other solution, that my friend and I picked, was the obvious solution. Not to give in to anger and adrenaline rush accepting the fight. Of course, we were lucky to be on a dance floor with lots of people around us, making it a possible solution. Still. If you are suddenly filled with anger from what could have been a rather painful headbutt, it may not have been the preferred option in the heat of the moment.

There is another scenario that I think is more difficult to handle: a verbal attack only. I think most people have had that experience that someone has lost his/hers temper and angrily yelled at you for something they believe you’ve done wrong. The situation has been rare for me, but when it happens, I usually become quite shocked and most often lack words to defend myself. And if I do manage to defend myself, in the case I felt I was innocent, I usually don’t have much of a thought through response then and there. Afterwards, it has always left me with a lingering feeling of resentment and mental pain. Both in terms of not being able to think fast enough to come up with a good response, replaying the scenario in my head giving a “proper answer”, but also of course the analysis of what went wrong that gave rise to the situation. Often, I felt afterwards that I would have preferred to take a stand for what I believed was right in the moment. If you are lucky however, you know the person, and you can hopefully sort it out afterwards when feelings have calmed down. But if you don’t. It is an unknown person off the street? You’ll most likely never meet him again. Well, then it’s best to just put it behind you and try to be better prepared for it if it ever happens again. But if you felt you did not wrong, do you forgive the person who attacked you verbally? Can you let it go?

Perhaps it all boils down to maturity. When someone is doing something to you that you believe is wrong. Well, let them. And don’t take it personally. It’s their problem, not yours. If possible, sort the problem out afterwards, but if not, just let it go. In retrospect, I guess this is one way to forgive.