Greatest Forgiveness Experience:

The heroism of forgiveness

Each of the reports I have read thus far on your greatest experience of forgiveness has moved me so deeply that any commentary I could make in response to any one of them would feel somehow diminishing of its greatness. They are like a display of elegant solitaires in the front window at Tiffany's.
 
And so, in response to them all, I am sharing the following statement of appreciation that was written some years ago by another colleague in forgiveness, Emmie Tse:

"Many people from around the world have courageously and graciously forgiven others. They have found a place in their hearts to forgive. They have forgiven people in situations which most of us would consider unforgivable. They have forgiven the murderers of their own children and parents. They have forgiven a race of people or individuals that have oppressed them and abused them. They have forgiven fathers and mothers who have neglected and abandoned them. They have forgiven co-workers and friends who have betrayed them. They have forgiven spouses who were unfaithful to them. They have forgiven all manner of persons who have betrayed and/or tormented them, and have forgiven themselves for betraying and tormenting others.

"These people have come to terms with the past, and have given up the pretense that they can change it.
  
"These people are our heroes. They have the strength, the courage, the generosity and the grace to forgive. And through their journey of forgiveness, they have transformed the home within their hearts, a home that is warm, secure, loving, gentle and peaceful."


Dear Marie:

I was especially moved by your report of your greatest forgiveness experience because I, too, at age 22, married a woman whom I did not love. I had realized my lack of love for her during our engagement, but when I endeavored to break it off she threatened to commit suicide. I caved to the threat.

When I could no longer withstand the cave-in (16 years later) and announced that I was leaving her, the same threat succeeded in bringing me back - twice. The conclusive break was made only after I sincerely asked myself, "What is the greatest consequence for me if she should make good on her threat?" The answer: I would have to raise two young children as a single parent. (I had put off our having children as long as possible, because I knew I would be more bound than ever to their mother.)

Since I loved my children, and was leaving their mother for their sake as much as for my own (as my relationship with her became weirder and weirder, they, too, were beginning to behave more and more weirdly), the prospect of raising them alone was eminently bearable. 

With that realization, I fearlessly proceeded to divorce my wife.

And guess what. . . This time she never once mentioned suicide, sensing that I could no longer be emotionally blackmailed.

It took me one more marriage to fathom the true nature of emotional blackmail, namely, that it is a con job I do on myself by using other's threats as my excuse to avoid facing my own fears. 

In the case of my first wife, I feared being single. With my second wife, I feared the conflict that sometimes goes with being true to myself. With my present wife, it was (and still is) only by being true to myself that I could (and can) have a relationship with her.

Without my learning from the first two marriages, the present one could not have happened. And for this marriage not to be would constitute a tragedy.

Just a few minutes ago I read the following in Robert Greenleaf's book on Servant Leadership: "You must be lost enough before you can find yourself. The test, maybe, is this: If you can't find yourself, you're not lost enough....To be on the journey one must have an attitude toward loss and being lost, a view of oneself in which [losses, however painful] do not appear as senseless or destructive. Rather, the losses . . . are seen as opening the way for new creative acts, and for the receiving of priceless gifts. Loss, every loss one's mind can conceive of, creates a vacuum into which will come (if allowed) something new and fresh and beautiful, something unforseen - and the greatest of these is love."

Greenleaf concludes, "Loss, by itself, is not tragic. What is tragic is the failure to grasp the opportunity which loss represents."

For some reason, these words moved me to respond privately to your post, perhaps because I, too, am "younger than that now" (one of my all-time favorite lyrical insights, among some others also by Bob Dylan), and perhaps for a reason that you will understand better than I.