Forgiveness - discussion

[busker]

Forgiveness


I forgive myself
For the failures of yesterday
I will not live in the past
Nor let it burden me with guilt
I will learn from my mistakes
But they will not define me

I forgive others
For the wrongs of days gone by
I will live in the moment
Yet embrace the journey taken
I will draw upon wisdom gained
From my trials, and my blessings

I choose to forgive
For He has forgiven me
I choose to love
For He has loved me
I will walk in the light
For He has shown me the way

Original at: https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-2542...#pid269922

I've been struggling the last few days or so about whether or not to post this. But I'm going to give into this inner pull that I feel, and hope that the moderators find this acceptable.

Last week, my older brother died. He had had many struggles over many years and had burned many bridges multiple times. I am purposely choosing to be vague, and I hope you guys understand.

This "Forgiveness" poem poured out of me almost 7 years ago under circumstances unrelated to him. Yet, here it is ... available to me when I need it again. I have shared it with others as they walk through their own need to heal, and they seem to have found it comforting.

Poetry is powerful, despite the fact that it has lost much of its popularity. One of the reasons that it has lost its appeal to the masses seems to be that most people are just so impatient. They are unwilling to ponder on things. Unwilling to be quiet. Unwilling to close their eyes ... to just listen and think.

This poem is pretty straightforward. Purposefully so. As I grow as a poet, my hope is that my poetry will be accessible, yet deep. I hope to paint pictures ... to express deep emotions ... to deal with the complexities and meaning of life with rhythm and brevity. Blessings

When Keats wrote 'When I have fears that I may cease to be' in January 1818, he was two years away from contracting tuberculosis and three years away from dying in Rome. He was nursing his ill brother, who died in December of that year, yet it is not as though he knew of his own impending demise. 

But read in hindsight, the poem presages Keats's death and feels like a premonition of his own thoughts before the blow fell. And it speaks personally to us at various times.

Great poetry has that universal appeal - it makes sense through space and time. As does great religious literature. Whatever your persuasion, it is difficult to read Philippians and not be moved by the conviction of 4:13. 

So, thanks for sharing. Read in the light of your newly disclosed information, the poem has a special glow to it.

[Mark A Becker]

hmm...
"As I grow as a poet, my hope is that my poetry will be accessible, yet deep."

If my poems aren't accessible then what's the point? Poems should not need explanantion, yet they do need to leave a reader free to interpret. The 'deep' part is where one can get into deep trouble. Poems can certainly be complex, but if they become obscure, then everybody loses.

Having lost both parents, my sister, and two brothers, I have found each death to be profoundly difficult to write about. I give myself enough time to grieve before I even attempt such a poem. If nothing comes, so be it. Something inevitably does surface, and I'm usually surprised at the direction those poems take.

Some of my stuff takes years to mull over- others 'appear' nearly fully formed- most are somewhere in the middle. None are intentionally deep.

[Bunx]

sometimes forgives in hidden in a poem
for a broken child to read
and love the poet
who taught them
without
......... tone

[CircleWalker]

It has been said by many professionals and others over the years that we need to forgive more for ourselves than for the person who "wronged" us. That it is unhealthy mentally and physically to hold onto anger and bitterness. And I fully agree with this.

With that said, I believe there are 2, or at least 2, "levels" of forgiveness.

The first is choosing to forgive someone on a mental or intellectual level. This is truly a decision of sorts. Something that we can do even though it is not necessarily easy. And I will add that it is more difficult to do if the other person does not recognize their error, their wrong, and has never sincerely apologized for the harm that they did.

I have found that there is a 2nd level. At least for me there is, or has been. And it seems to only come into play when the harm was deep or traumatic or repetitive.

This is forgiveness of the heart. This heart-level stuff is not really controllable ... is not really a decision. It happens when it happens, if it happens at all. For me, I have found that this has happened when the "offending" person died. After their death, I felt that a weight was lifted that I did not know I carried, much to my surprise for I thought that I had already forgiven them. In truth, I had forgiven them intellectually which was the only level I had true control of.

Another way to understand this might be that level 1 is conscious, and level 2 is unconscious. Just a different way of articulating the same concepts IMO.

Hopefully, those rambling thoughts will make sense to some. Blessings

---------------------------------
A brief (I hope) followup. Rather than edit the above ramblings, I will just add to them with the goal that this might add clarity. And I realize that it will be somewhat redundant.

I absolutely believe that we can choose to forgive, at least to a degree. And I believe that we can significantly benefit from doing so. I also believe, that we do not have full control over our heart's, unconscious mind's, or our body's ability to forgive. 

Our ability to fully forgive may depend upon how deep the wound is. Is it skin-deep? muscle-deep? organ-deep? And has there been recognition and regret by those who hurt us? Additionally, what is the status of our emotional/mental health. If we are in a good place, then forgiveness is certainly much, much easier. If we are struggling, while it is harder, we can benefit much more from doing so.

So very many people struggle with forgiveness. I attended a Bible-study class on this topic and there was a large group. I ended up reading this poem to the class, despite my dislike for public-speaking, and many people asked for copies. Lastly, I recommend prayer.

[rowens]

You forgive for yourself not them. They may not give a shit about you or your forgiveness.
The other person isn't responsible for how you feel about them, and forgiving them doesn't make you responsible for them.
You can't help how you were harmed by what they did. The person who harmed is already dead the moment after they harmed you. The harm is then what counts, not them.
Your continued appeal toward them is a kind of love or at least cry for validation from that person or an image you have or had of them. Either that or a wrathful need for revenge; they need to hurt and they need to suffer the assumed indignity of apology or acknowledgement of guilt.

These things twist and twist and twist until you are as concerned about that person as much or even more so than yourself or even others.

Forgiving the entire situation, all the aspects of the society and world where such harm can take place, could take the weight off of you. The doubts about how you should feel.
You feel how you feel, it is what it is. You can forgive yourself in every moment when you feel confused. You can forgive your so-called unconscious levels. You can forgive yourself for feeling that you should know better or should suffer or should not suffer.


How could you do this to me? How could all the people that do these things?

Anyway, as you said, the body simply has to give way. The intellectual levels are circuits that loop and lick and flick and something dawns on you, and you take that deep body breath of relief.

The intellectual level isn't making a choice either. Else it would do it immediately.

[dukealien]

1. Solipsistic - The problem with the modern/scientific/psychological understanding of forgiveness (focusing solely on benefits to the offended party) is that it leaves out the offender.  This makes it possible to ignore or depersonalize him - scarcely an advance over, “I never want to see you again.” James Russell Lowell wrote, “The gift without the giver is bare;” forgiveness without the offender is similarly naked.  Forgiveness shares its benefits between offended and offender: if the offender doesn’t request or at least acknowledge it, forgiveness is incomplete.  It may even be haughty, indeed offensive, “I forgive you, but you’re such a lout there’s no point in even mentioning it to you.”

(Of course requests for forgiveness can’t be forced - one is put in mind of Doctor Maturin’s “Beg my pardon, sir, beg my pardon or you are a dead man, a dead man!” as the point of his sword drips blood into the eyes of his defeated offender.  They are, however, required.  As military planners must remind themselves, the enemy gets a vote.)

2. Effective - How can you tell when forgiveness is effective, even in the modern sense of promoting your own mental health?  How do you know your own mind?  I suggest (sincerely?) “this one trick” for making an accurate determination:

If you must
remember to
forget
you’ve not
forgiven yet.

If the wound still itches, it’s not healed.

3. Sincere - With the best will in the world, it sometimes seems impossible to forgive: one doesn’t have the mind for it.  In that case, consider another trick I learned in group therapy (yes, been there) called the Insincere Gesture in the Interest of Peace.  This involves doing and saying something in which you don’t believe so you can at least assuage the continuing discomfort of not having handled the situation acceptably.  The result of this non-deception is amazing: you find yourself actually, sincerely believing in your forgiveness once the stress of maintaining the inadequacy ceases.  A musical analog might be Anna (in the musical) pretending not be afraid only to discover that, in fact, she’s not.

Sincerity, then, can arise after the fact.  Strange but true.