Forgiveness & Grace
The paths to healing, accountability, and transformation.
By William Peeples
In most spiritual practices, forgiveness and grace are attributes that are extolled as virtuous acts. In the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity and Islam, believers are encouraged to forgive and show grace to others even as they hope for God's forgiveness and forbearance for their faults and transgressions.
However, theory and practice are two separate things; and this is especially true when we come from a society that inculcates the idea of retribution, punishment, and revenge into us in our earliest stages of human development. From cartoons to fairy tales, we are taught to expect and exact retributions for behavior that is deemed wrong, evil, or sinful. As children, we are scolded and punished for our wrong-doing and disobedience. In our social and educational institutions, we are taught the lesson that wrong-doing and disobedience must be paid for with pain, suffering, and humiliation.
This message is hammered home in the books we read, the movies we are entertained by, the music we listen to, and finally, our judicial system. In fact, the ideology of retribution is so dominant that even in the criminal subculture of gangs and prison communities, it is practiced with fervor and glee.
So, while we pay lip-service to these virtues and while most of us plead with judges, prosecutors, governance, and the general public to show a modicum of forgiveness and grace to us for our crimes, we do not practice what we profess to believe. Some seem to think that to forgive or show grace means that we tolerate or turn a "blind eye" to all manner of evil and harmful behavior. For me, grace is meant not as absolution for wrong-doing but as a “grace period” wherein one is afforded understanding and withholding of judgment and condemnation and accountability, even as they do the internal work of striving to amend their behavior, with the ultimate goal of doing and being better. Grace then, in my view, is not exemption; it is respite, allowing time for transformation and reform.
I take a like view of forgiveness. When I say "forgive," I do not mean to say overlook, tolerate, or pretend that a wrong did not occur.
To be forgiven, there has to be conditions, and the act of forgiving is, to me, far more beneficial for the one who has been wronged than it is for the wrong-doer. When harm is done and that pain is internalized, it can develop into a cancerous manifestation of hatred, resentment, and recurring thoughts of revenge. So, in this sense, forgiving is part of the arduous process of healing from trauma and harm for the victim.
As it relates to the causer of harm, forgiveness is an essential component of atonement. Forgiveness is not a "free pass" or "get out of jail free" card. In bestowing the gift of forgiveness, the victims are not saying "you are excused" or "you did nothing wrong"; the point of forgiveness is to offer the wrong-doer a viable path back to a "right relationship" with themselves, the aggrieved party, the community, and all sentient beings. I use the word "bestow" because, contrary to popular belief, forgiveness is not earned; it is given, and then the beneficiary of it is expected to live up to the value of that blessing and work to become better. The price of forgiveness is the expectation that the wrong-doer will strive to a.) not to repeat the offense, and b.) to be proactive in the endeavor to repair, reconcile, and recompense the victim. Forgiveness does not forgo accountability or responsibility for wrong-doing; if anything, I would argue that it inspires the causer of harm to live in ways that merit the priceless gift of forgiveness.
Being the recipient of forgiveness necessitates paying it forward when we are wronged. I firmly believe that love, compassion, patience, mercy, and forbearance are capable of achieving what retribution, punishment, and revenge cannot! And that is, the full and complete reconstitution of families and communities after breaches have occurred. Just for a moment, dream a little dream with me and imagine a world where wrongs and offenses are not met with a desire for our "pound of flesh" but instead with practices rooted in love; where even as we hold one another accountable, we work to heal, restore, redeem, and reaffirm the humanity of those harmed, as well as those causing harm. If we can dream it, we can deem it a reality!
