AKMA on Forgiveness

AKMA has burst onto the Daypop Top 40 with his blog entry on Forgiveness. And deservedly so. Although I don’t hold grudges (generally … you know who you are, you dirty bastards), it took an embarrassing number of years for me to get over the idea that forgiveness was an irrational will-to-forget and to see that it was the way we humans, imperfect by nature, can manage to live together. When AKMA writes that forgiveness “may be the only way to take an offense with adequate seriousness,” I have one of those Getting It moments. “Forgiving wrongs requires us to take them utterly seriously as injuries to one another and to the relationships of which we form a part…” Beautiful.

One thing struck me as peculiar, though. AKMA writes:

Forgiving entails recognizing a wrong, looking at it clearly and honestly, assessing responsibility for it, and resolving not to permit that wrong to determine our lives from thence forward.

Elsewhere AKMA says that forgivness must include “a degree of resolution to avoid repeating my offense, and my effort to live out a life characterized by the manifest embrace of a better way forward.” The one thing missing from AKMA’s article is the idea of restitution. My religion, Judaism, as I understand it (i.e., not at all) puts particular stress on making whole what one has ruptured through one’s bad behavior. Yes, you resolve not to do it again, and yes, you don’t let that behavior rend the fabric of the relationship. But you also run out to the store immediately and buy Margaret some more damn pepper.

Now, obviously AKMA doesn’t need me to tell him that. He was probably camping on the doorstep of the Quickie Mart to be first on line for pepper. Is restitution too obvious an idea to have surfaced in AKMA’s essay? Or does the difference in emphasis indicate a deeper difference in our religions? I’m inclined toward the former since I feel an odd social responsibility to mark the differences between Judaism and Christianity so that the hyphen in “Judeo-Christian” catches in the throat. For example, Judaism tends to be less of a religion of beliefs and faith than Christianity is…

Gentlemen, start your generalizations!

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Quite an amazing blogthread developing on forgiveness! AKMA followed up his post with another wallop, this on what forgiveness does to time: “forgiveness involves a transition from a problematic past to a more hopeful future…” which, he notes, means constructing (or finding) a narrative. And this should lead us to reflect on the way in which all social relationships are about time often in the form of narratives: “You are my friend for life” includes you in a particular narrative whereas “You’re just a social acquaintance” tells a different story.

Also in the blogthread is the eloquent Steve Yost, a guy I’ve known in the real world for a couple of years, and although I have the highest regard for him as a person of integrity and as a software master, his blog is showing me something even more that I hadn’t met in him in the real world. Halley and Marek have also jumped in, but we’ve grown to expect Excellence in Blogging from them already…

Nah, I’m not going to let them off the hook that easily. Halley tries to get comfortable in forgiveness’ embrace when writing about her recently passed father. I must say that her writing over the past couple of days has really been outstanding. See for yourself. And Marek confronts himself and his feelings for his father and how that refracts all of his world — just like the rest of us, Marek, just like the rest of us — with the confusion that marks honesty about what’s most difficult. What he writes is so personal that I don’t feel like I have right to say anything except: See for yourself.

Thank you, Steve, Halley and Marek. And thank you, AKMA. Isn’t this what teaching is about? Creating occasions for learning?

(Forgive my pompousness. It’s how my emotions come out in public.)

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