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The story is
told about the renowned poet, Edwin Markham who, as he approached his
retirement years, discovered the investment advisor who managed
Markham’s portfolio had squandered away Markham’s sizeable “nest egg.”
Within the flash of an instant of receiving this very disconcerting
news, Markham’s dream of a comfortable retirement had all but vanished
into thin air.
Markham became so
obsessed with his loss that he found himself brooding over it day after
day and for weeks on end. As Markham contemplated the injustice
perpetrated upon him by his investment advisor, Markham grew angrier and
his bitterness grew exponentially. His soul was filled with ravenous
hatred.
Then, one day,
Markham was seated at his desk thinking about the all of the bitterness
and turmoil raging within him and he suddenly realized that he was
doodling and drawing circles on a sheet of parchment. Gazing at the
circles he had drawn, the thought struck from somewhere deep within that
Markham had to forgive his investment advisor. Contemplating this for a
moment, Markham determined that he would forgive his investment advisor
and, then, steeled himself to do so. It was at that moment that Markham
penned the following poem:
He drew
a circle to shut me out,
Heretic,
rebel, a thing to flout;
But love
and I had the wit to win,
We drew
a circle to take him in.
As Markham determined and steeled himself to forgive his investment
advisor, Markham experienced a tremendous surge of creativity suddenly
liberated from deep within his soul. It was Edwin Markham’s
decision to forgive his investment advisor that invited God’s great
power of love to free Markham’s soul from the spiritual tomb into which
Markham had interred it.
Those short, four
lines are perhaps the most famous, memorable, and popular of Markham’s
hundreds of poems.
I believe this
particular poem is so popular because it strikes a resonant chord with
those of us who oftentimes think about forgiveness as something others
should beg from us. We draw a circle to shut them out and we become
adamant that those who’ve hurt us should come to us and beg forgiveness
for what they’ve done. Perhaps, we think, a bit of groveling might not
be all that bad, too!
But, as Markham’s
example and poem about the heroic virtue of forgiveness teaches, it is
more important to realize that, if we include those who have hurt us in
the circle we’ve drawn by forgiving them first, we invite the power of
God’s love to resurrect our souls from the spiritual tombs into which
we’ve interred them through our unwillingness to forgive.
There also is a
prisoner on death row whose name is Michael Dismas. He is a serial
killer, having killed eight women, more than the rest of the death row
prisoners in his unit combined. In an article he wrote entitled
“Reflections on Forgiveness,” Michael Dismas says that “by God’s grace,
today I experience more peace of mind and more true freedom than do the
rest of the men here on death row combined.”
Dismas describes his
experience of freedom as transcending the physical world, a type of
freedom he believes few people understand. In fact, when he does speak
about spiritual freedom, many of the prisoners mock Michael Dismas. He
writes:
I know that God has
forgiven me for the crimes that I have committed against humanity, and I
am truly grateful for His mercy. I do not know whether the families of
my victims will ever be able to forgive me, though I pray that someday
they can. I do know, however, that God has taught me how to forgive
those who injured me, and therein lies the key to much of the freedom
that I have experienced.
That last statement
might strike us as somewhat strange if not bizarre. Given what Michael
Dismas has perpetrated upon eight women as well as the members of their
families and friends, why in the world God be teaching a serial murderer
to forgive those who’ve injured him? Shouldn’t God be teaching those
whose lives Michael Dismas has irreversibly changed—if not ruined—to
forgive him? And, how has this led to what he calls this “transcendent”
experience of freedom?
Dismas provides his
readers a bit of background that helps provide an answer to these
questions.
Michael Dismas’
mother, a Catholic, became pregnant when she was seventeen. Since
abortion wasn’t legal in 1958, his mother married a farmer she didn’t
love and bore a child she didn’t even want. Abused herself as a child
and because, in her mind, Michael was the cause of her problems, it made
sense to Michael’s mother to abuse her son.
Michael reports that
most of the abuse he suffered was mental rather than physical. But
there was one form of physical abuse that Michael Dismas says “haunts me
to this day.”
His mother used to
give Michael enemas, she said, “to clean out the system.” So, even as a
very young boy, Michael’s mother would administer the enema and then
force Michael to stand in the middle of the bathroom. Eventually, he
would lose control of his sphincter muscle and make a mess all over
himself and the floor. Then, Michael’s mother would yell and scream at
him, calling him “stupid” and “worthless.” About this, Michael says:
“What hurts most now is knowing that back then I was just a little kid
who believed every word his mother said.”
Imprisoned to death
row for his eight callous and brutal murders, Michael Dismas read some
books about forgiveness. In one book written by Robin Casarjian, In
Forgiveness: A Bold Choice for a Peaceful Heart, the following
statement caught Michael’s attention:
…resentment has been
compared to holding on to a burning ember with the intention of throwing
it at another, all the while burning yourself. When we feel resentful,
we feel strongly the pain of the past again and again.
In a second book,
The Process of Forgiveness written by the famous psychiatrist, the
late-Dr. William A. Menninger, the following statement caught Michael’s
eye:
When we allow ourselves
to remain wounded, bitter, resentful persons, we contaminate not only
ourselves but everyone we contact. Our family, our children, our
friends, our community, our society, over very world is marred, soiled,
and degraded.
As Michael Dismas
contemplated the words he read in those two books, Michael slowly came
to the realization that the anger he had been harboring toward his
mother was destroying his soul. Like the circles Edwin Markham had
drawn led him to determine that he would forgive his investment advisor,
the words Michael Dismas read in those two books made him desperate to
forgive his mother. Unlike Markham, however, Dismas couldn’t do it
himself. In fact, Markham reports that it took years as well as
assistance from a spiritual director, the prison’s psychiatrist, and
some friends for Michael to be able to forgive his mother. He
experienced the period between the period of time when he first realized
he had to forgive his mother and the moment when he could honestly say,
“I forgive you, Mom,” as being filled with anguish, despair, pain, and
self-hatred. Yet, it was during this period of time that Michael Dismas
discovered a great truth. He writes: “…true inner peace is only found
when you realize that you must change yourself not the people who have
hurt you.”
Forgiveness is no
mystery. As the experiences of Edwin Markham and Michael Dismas
exemplify, forgiveness is a pre-requisite not only for mental health
but, more so, for spiritual health. And yet, why is it that so many of
us want to hang on to past hurt, to bear grudges, to relive the past and
harbor resentment, anger, and hatred? Why do we draw those
circles, as Markham found himself doing, that exclude those who have
hurt us, especially when we know that we’re really hurting ourselves?
Dismas suggests that
part of the reason may be that any willingness to forgive contradicts
two illusions prevalent in our culture. The first illusion is that of
power, that is, we believe that by holding onto the past we are in
better control of our lives. The second illusion is our belief in the
myths we oftentimes associate with forgiveness. We learn many of these
myths as youngsters and we buy into them without fully understanding
what they mean in terms of how we limit, if not destroy, our lives. It
is only when we understand these two illusions and appreciate what
forgiveness truly is that we can make the courageous decision to forgive
others and to move forward in doing so by allowing the power of God’s
love to resurrect our souls from the spiritual tombs into which we’ve
interred them because we’ve been so unwilling to forgive others.
First, the illusion
of power which deceives us into thinking that we’re in control of our
lives.
We oftentimes don’t
forgive others because we believe that, by withholding forgiveness, we
will have greater control over our lives. For example, if we don’t
forgive someone who has hurt us, we then don’t have to take personal
responsibility for the direction our lives have taken. Instead, we can
point the finger of blame at all of those who have hurt us and robbed us
of what surely would have been a “better” and “more perfect” life.
We blame our
parents, our spouses (or former spouses), our children, or our gene pool
for the situation in which we now find ourselves and the way we now
behave without ever taking responsibility for choosing to live that way.
By doing so,
however, we define ourselves and our lives in a way we’ve designed to
make us feel less guilty than we actually do feel and, so, it’s easier
(and a cop out as well) to allow our past experience to define our
present reality.
Forgiveness requires
that we recognize the simple fact that it is we who are responsible for
the person we’ve turned out to be. We are not the product of those who
have hurt us.
Not forgiving others
also deludes us into believing that we have power over those who have
hurt us. How? Like Edwin Markham, as we direct all of our creative
energies into hating them, there is nothing they can do about it.
Furthermore, we decide that unless those who’ve hurt us come begging for
forgiveness and grovel before us, we won’t forgive them. Now, that’s
real power!
However, forgiveness
requires that we recognize how our unwillingness to forgive others
actually gives them power over us, even years after they are no longer
part of our lives. As unbelievably absurd and crazy as it may sound, I
know of an elderly fellow whose mother-in-law has been deceased for more
than two decades and, at the slightest mention of her name, he still
flies off the handle into angry, hate-filled tirades. We really do
become prisoners of our unwillingness to forgive. We allow them to
control us, not the other way around. It is truly a sad sight to
behold and, sadder yet, to recognize that the person is so blinded by
hatred that he cannot admit that there is any truth to the observation!
There’s one last
illusion of power, namely, if we don’t forgive, then we believe we won’t
be able to hurt in the same way again. With the best of intentions, we
use this mechanism to defend ourselves from experiencing further pain.
But, what this mechanism really reveals is our fear that, if we do
forgive someone who has hurt us and we do draw one of Markham’s circles
which includes that person us once again in our lives, we fear this
person once again will find some way to hurt us. So, we live by the old
adage, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
In contrast,
forgiveness requires that we not hold onto the past so as not to give
others the power to continue to hurt us. We choose to live not in
isolation but in openness to whatever Fate will send our way because
Fate doesn’t control our present or future reality. We do.
These illusions of
power reinforce our dogged determination not to forgive those who have
hurt us. But, instead of freeing us from the spiritual tombs into which
we’ve interred our souls, our past hurts continue to haunt us even in
the present and they will continue to do so into the future. Only
forgiveness makes it possible to move on with our lives because we take
personal responsibility for our lives. And, we are only able to make
this change by inviting the power of God’s love to free us from our
souls from the spiritual tombs in which we’ve interred them through our
unwillingness to forgive those who have so deeply hurt us.
Beyond the illusion
of power, there are several mythical illusions associated with
forgiveness that we’ve learned to believe. What we didn’t learn,
however, is how these myths tempt us to limit, if not destroy, our
lives.
From our earliest
years, we’ve all heard the aphorism, “Forgive and forget.” Well, the
myth implied in this aphorism is neither realistic nor is it helpful,
mentally or spiritually. It certainly would be nice if we could all
turn the clock back and erase everything bad that has come our way or to
click our heels three times and go back to Kansas with our dog, Toto.
But, we know that this just isn’t going to happen.
On the other hand,
forgiveness allows us to learn from the past and to use it to improve
ourselves by increasing the quality of our lives today and into the
future. Though unpleasant and perhaps hurtful to have experienced,
these important lessons can help us to become better people who now can
live more full and complete lives by not forgetting the past and coming
to terms with past hurts.
Forgiveness also
doesn’t mean condoning what others have done. What was done to us was
not “okay.” Neither was it “a good life’s lesson.” Nor was it “not so
bad” to have been hurt. We were hurt and we’ve allowed the pain we
suffered to affect our lives for the worse. Forgiveness doesn’t
minimize past hurts but it does minimize the effects that past hurts can
have on our lives not only today but also into the future.
Furthermore,
forgiveness is not absolution. Those who perpetrate an evil continue to
bear personal responsibility for what they have done. Forgiveness
requires that we recognize the fact that, ultimately, evildoers will
bear responsibility for their actions and will have to accept the truth
about their past no matter how hard evildoers try to avoid being held
accountable. Forgiveness takes this heavy burden off of our shoulders
by delegating the task of making these difficult judgments to God.
Forgiveness also
isn’t a form of “virtuous” self-sacrifice. Pretending that everything
is just fine when one knows fully well that things aren’t fine is
nothing other than fanciful self-deception that can lead to
self-delusion and a host of other mental and spiritual problems. So,
too, are repressing anger and pain, plastering a smile on one’s face, or
trying to make everything appear nice when everything really is a mess.
Forgiveness means admitting to and dealing directly with our
unwillingness to forgive those who have hurt us. Furthermore,
forgiveness does not allow those of us who have been hurt to treat those
who have hurt us similarly. Otherwise, we’re no better than them!
Lastly, forgiveness
isn’t a once-for-all, final decision. No one of us can plop down in an
easy chair and decide to forgive someone else. Neither can any one of
us develop a plan and schedule who we’re going to forgive and when we’re
going to forgive them. Instead, forgiveness takes time and strenuous,
dedicated effort. While forgiveness does come naturally, we first must
confront the truth about our hurt and pain. This may require working
with a spiritual director or a confessor who can help us to invite God
to resurrect our souls from the spiritual tombs into which we’ve
interred them because all along the way it is we who have been unwilling
to forgive those who have hurt us and not the other way around!
In today’s reading
from the second letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes: “Whoever is
in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold,
new things have come. And all this if from God…”
God’s willingness to
forgive all of us who have wronged God has made each of us a new
creation. We’ve already been forgiven. We needn’t live in fear.
Michael Dismas suggests that this provides at least six lessons in what
true forgiveness is all about.
First, forgiveness
is being realistic. Forgiving others for what they’ve done doesn’t
deny, minimize, or justify what they’ve done or the pain we’ve suffered
at their behest. Instead, forgiveness makes it possible for us to
examine our hurts and to see them for what they truly are. More
importantly, being realistic also enables us to recognize how much time
and energy we’ve wasted, how much we’ve limited ourselves, as well as
how we’ve forsaken so much of our lives because we’ve not been willing
to forgive others.
Second, forgiveness
cannot be forced and it doesn’t come easy. Instead, forgiveness
requires that we truly desire and be truly committed to seeking the
healing we need and that we possess the intestinal fortitude to work
toward healing. The process, as difficult as it is, invites God to roll
back that big stone sealing us within those spiritual tombs.
Third, forgiveness
builds self-esteem. By identifying ourselves as people who need healing
and by no longer defining ourselves by referencing past hurts, injuries,
injustices or labeling ourselves as “victims,” we can appreciate better
who we truly are, where we’ve come from, and where we’d like to be
headed today and into the future. Forgiveness, then, enables us to
reclaim the control over our lives that we’ve surrendered to those who
have hurt us.
Fourth, forgiveness
means letting go of the past but it doesn’t mean forgetting the past.
Forgiveness doesn’t magically erase what has happened but it no longer
allows past hurts to dictate how we will live today and into the
future. Freed from our spiritual tombs, we no longer will need to use
our resentment, anger, and hatred as excuses to explain away our
shortcomings, failures, and sinful behavior. We also will no longer
need to use our resentment, anger, and hatred as weapons to punish
others or as shields to protect ourselves from those who have hurt us.
Forgiveness, then, liberates us to become so much more than victims who
spend their time uttering the same litany of past hurts.
Fifth, forgiveness
means that we no longer need to punish those who have hurt us. Instead,
as we gradually let go of the past, God fills our souls with that
transcendent, inner peace Michael Dismas writes about. This isn’t a
delusion but a spiritual reality because forgiveness changes our minds
as we decide that we will no longer allow resentment, anger, and hatred
to make sense to us and, at the same time, to destroy our lives.
Sixth, forgiveness
means moving on. Our stubborn refusal to forgive carries with it a very
high price. All of the energy we spend hanging onto our past hurts is
energy that would be much better spent on improving our present and our
future. We can only move on, however, by letting go of the past.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting the past; no, forgiveness is to
invite God to roll back that huge stone sealing our spiritual tomb so
that our souls can be resurrected and we can move on, leaving all of
that behind.
Reflecting upon the
illusions of power and the myths associated with the heroic virtue of
forgiveness and, then, considering what forgiveness really means and
requires of us—as Michael Dismas suggests—we will come to the stunning
realization about how easy it is for us to talk about forgiveness. For
example, we all know how easy it is to say that a good marriage is built
upon the bedrock of mutual forgiveness. Furthermore, we all know that
strong relationships between parents and their children as well as
children and their siblings are constructed upon the ability to forgive
one another as we bump up and against one another in the normal course
of our days as imperfect people.
But, we also know
that it’s not so easy to forgive a spouse when one is terribly wronged
nor is it easy to forgive a child or sibling when they have terribly
wronged us. Our tendency is to expect them to come and beg our
forgiveness first. Once again, a little groveling wouldn’t hurt
either. But, I must ask: Isn’t that precisely what breeds divorce,
children who seek relationships with their peers engaged in delinquent
behavior or drugs and alcohol, as well as those sibling rivalries which
divide families for decades upon decades? Not forgiving is a sin,
perhaps an unforgivable sin because only we can forgive those who have
hurt us.
In today’s first
reading, we heard Joshua announce to the Israelites encamped at Gilgal:
“Today, God has removed the reproach of Egypt from you.” No longer
would they eat manna; instead, they ate real food, the produce of the
land. Then, in today’s gospel, Luke reminds us in the Parable of the
Prodigal Son that God is the “forgiving father.” I’m sure that just
about all of us prefer both of those ideas more than we do the idea of
God the “just judge.” The One who removes “the reproach” and the
“forgiving father” sound real good and make us feel “warm and fuzzy”
inside, especially when these images are compared to the image of the
“just judge” which sounds so ominous and makes us feel guilt and fear.
But, unlike God,
most of us are not as quick to forgive those who have hurt us because we
either don’t like what forgiveness requires or we aren’t willing to
pursue that pathway because we feel more comfortable living in a world
of illusions and myths to justify our unwillingness to forgive. I
believe many of us don’t like thinking about God as the “just judge”
precisely because it is we who think we are and act like God “the just
judge.” After all, it is us not God who condemns those who have hurt us
to live outside of the little circle that we’ve drawn!
It’s in this sense I
believe that the heroic virtue of forgiveness is similar to giving
things up for Lent. Each year when I suggest to the congregation that
we give up television for Lent, people suddenly realize that giving up
candy, desserts, and the like doesn’t seem all that awful. When
compared to giving up our lack of forgiveness, we probably wouldn’t mind
giving television because we’d much rather stubbornly clutch onto our
unwillingness to forgive. The problem, of course, is that this clearly
demonstrates that we love ourselves more than we love either God or
neighbor.
These weeks of Lent
and this Sunday’s readings from scripture remind us how we are blessed
with the gift of time. We have time—although it’s a limited amount of
time—to grow in the heroic virtue of forgiveness. As St. Paul noted in
this morning’s Epistle:
…all this if from God,
who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and give us the ministry
of reconciliation…not counting their trespasses against them and
entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors
for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on
behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
We become reconciled with God and are ministers of His reconciliation
as, like Edwin Markham, we muster the inner fortitude to invite God to
roll back the large stone we’ve allowed to entomb our souls and to
resurrect them on Easter Sunday morning. At that very that moment, like
the Risen Lord, we will experience the surge of creativity Edwin Markham
experienced from deep within his soul when he forgave his investment
advisor. Our souls will also be filled with that transcendent,
inner peace Michael Dismas experienced emanating from deep within his
soul when he realized the he needed to forgive his mother.
Then, on Easter
Sunday, perhaps we will also draw a circle around our dining room table,
a circle which includes all of those who’ve hurt us in the past because
we will pray as Jesus did and mean it just as truly Jesus did, “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they were doing.” |
HOMILY
