Posted by Benjamin on: 07.11.2007 /
I want to draw your attention to a brilliant and true stowaway and theft story from marine engineer Jonathan, one of my favorite people. It seems one of Jonathan’s shipmates was caught red handed with stolen items in his cabin, and Jonathan was part of the investigational team. Jonathan captures rather well the painful sense of being the victim of a breach of trust. M_____, the thief, asked him for a second chance. Jonathan writes:
He caught me off guard. I looked at him. “I don’t know. I don’t know if you’re for real, or if you’re just playing me for a chump. The trust is gone. It’s not like a light switch, turn it on, turn it off, turn it on again.”
At the same time, Jonathan was reading Les Miserables, in which the bishop is presented with a similar choice when the gendarmes bring Jean Valjean caught red handed with the bishop’s silver dishes. The bishop replies:
“Ah, there you are!” said he, looking towards Jean Valjean, “I am glad to see you. But! I gave you the candlesticks also, which are silver like the rest, and would bring two hundred francs. Why did you not take them with your plates?”
After explaining to the gendarmes that Jean Valjean was on the up and up
The bishop approached him, and said, in a low voice: “Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.”
Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of this promise, stood confounded. The bishop had laid much stress upon these words as he uttered them. He continued, solemnly: “Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!”
Jonathan continues his story
We continued talking for awhile. Was he repenting? What does it mean to forgive? Doesn’t he have to face the consequences? Do I only forgive after he repents? I remembered the Bishop, he showed grace to Jean Valjean, and only then did Jean Valjean repent, and change. It was the grace that enabled him to repent. It’s the same with God; we repent because he already forgave us. Why was it so important that I not be a chump? That I not get played? That M____’s sin was obvious, but mine was hidden, that was the true story here. And that God showed me grace despite the selfish retention of my pride.
I think Jonathan beautifully captures in his story the struggle between wonder at the beauty and grace of forgiveness when we see it well exercised, and the gargantuan difficulty of exercising it ourselves when we are the victim of painful breach of trust. Thankyou for sharing Jonathan! You can read the whole story here.
Have you had/are you having such an experience any part of which you can share with us?
How is personal forgiveness related to cultural/national forgiveness, and thus to world peace?
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Comment by: Meg
1 07/11/07 6:26 PM | Comment Link |WOW! I love what Jonathan says about God - “We repent because he already forgave us.” I remember hearing Jonathan preach in a church in Ivory Coast, West Africa, at the start of the military coup. He has this wonderful gift of being able to understand and communicate Godness. Bens, you have that gift, too. I need people like the two of you, as I don’t have this gift and easily forget God’s Godness. Thanks!
PS Bens, I believe it’s seven years since you began reading Les Miserables to me - including that day when we chose Cosette’s name, four years ago!! I can’t wait for the next chapter.
Comment by: David H
2 07/11/07 8:30 PM | Comment Link |I find stories of grace so compelling and beautiful when I hear them. But I find grace very hard to live on a daily basis. One of the things that makes grace so difficult for me is concern about the outcome. If I let you off the hook will you honor that grace? Will you repay my grace? I only realize later that by asking that question I have killed grace. Grace is not concerned with outcomes. Grace is simply given. It isn’t about what the recipient will do with it.
Because of the nature of grace and forgiveness it seems very difficult to apply it on a cultural and national basis. Countries and groups of people don’t simply give things away without knowing what they will get in return. That just wouldn’t be prudent. Grace is a personal thing; it is in many ways something that can only really be given from one person to another person. Still, I believe there is tremendous power in that; a power that can extend out to change nations and the world.
Philip Yancey is one of my favorite authors. In his book “Rumors of Another World,” Yancey writes about how personal grace affected South Africa after the end of apartheid.
Comment by: Rachel
3 07/12/07 8:29 AM | Comment Link |One of my most important lessons in the area of forgiveness came about nine years ago when I was working in an insurance office. I had an amazing co-worker named Linda who sat in the desk next to me. One day Linda got a phone call that her teenage son had been wounded in a mass shooting at the high school. She rushed out and the rest of the office gathered anxiously around the television to watch the reports come in. Two kids were killed and 22 were wounded by an angry and disturbed classmate.
Over the next few months and years, I had the privilege of watching Linda’s amazing grace as she dealt with this crisis. Linda’s son survived but struggled with severe pain and some long term impairment as a result of about a dozen bullets and bullet fragments. Many of the victims’ parents were filled with rage and at one point, some broadcast their desire to “build a bonfire in front of city hall and roast Kip (the shooter) over it.” But Linda radiated both deep sadness and quiet peace.
Linda is a devout Catholic and sometimes would go visit her priest on her lunch break. One day we got into a discussion about the death penalty. Many in the community were furious that the shooter, because of his age, was not eligible for execution. I had always supported the death penalty, as had everyone else I knew in the the conservative Baptist churches I’d grown up in. But Linda told me that even if the shooter had killed her son, she would not want him executed. She expressed motherly compassion for the deeply troubled young shooter.
I was blown away. For the first time in my life, I was forced to seriously reconsider my position on the death penalty. I could not ignore Linda’s powerful testimony. I remember at one point saying to her, “But the Bible says that murderers should be put to death!” She replied, “But that was in the Old Testament. In the New Testament we are under grace.” I was speechless. (After all, I had always been taught that Catholics didn’t even believe in grace!) I asked her for more information about her Church’s position. She brought me some literature from her priest and my heart and mind were changed.
I also remember asking Linda, “How can you be so peaceful and forgiving after what was done to your son?” She shared with me something she had read that had deeply impressed her, “Bitterness is like swallowing poison and then waiting for the other person to die.” I have thought about that phrase countless times since then. I know people who have allowed themselves to be consumed by unforgiveness until it shows deeply on their faces and ruins their health and their relationships. When I encounter people like that, I always tell myself, “You’ve got to forgive. You’ve GOT to forgive.”
I’m so grateful that I had the privilege of journeying next to Linda during that time. I learned so much from watching her day after day. Her testimony of grace and forgiveness was more powerful than a thousand sermons.
Comment by: Benjamin
4 07/14/07 1:49 AM | Comment Link |David,
wow–yancey does nail it, doesn’t he? Have you seen the movie Red Dust? It captures that the sense of the TRC rather well as well, methinks.
I’m interested in your idea about how forgiveness is a personal thing and cannot really be extended nationally/culturally? Isn’t the TRC a way in which a whole nation embraced the idea? I guess I was thinking things like “What if the sunnis and the shiites, as groups, embraced the idea of forgiveness? or the palestinians and the israelites? Or the americans and the … “terrorists”?
Yeah, as you mention–I can’t seem to pull off being graceful in the daily simple interactions lots of times. So it makes all these bigger ideas seem almost impossible. And yet ….
Comment by: Benjamin
5 07/14/07 1:55 AM | Comment Link |Rachel,
Wow–thankyou so much for sharing with us about your journey with Linda.
I really identify with you in in the experiences of being … shown the way out of my conservative baptist upbringing where catholics were baddies who didn’t believe in grace, and where “christians” embraced the OT idea of the death penalty. One of the biggest infuences on me in this journey have been my super amazing wife, Meg, and her two delightful sisters, Seren and Rachel.
I note your … juxtaposition of sadness and anger. They seem to be two somehow very different reactions to violence which lead to very different results.
Comment by: David H
6 07/14/07 2:52 PM | Comment Link |It isn’t that it can’t be extended — obviously it can. It is just very difficult if for no other reason then you don’t know how the other will respond and nations don’t like to do things unilaterally. While nation’s and cultures can have a concept or philosophy of forgiveness, where the rubber meets the road is between individuals. The real work of forgiveness is between you and me. Will I take the risk of forgiving you?
But if we can do it, then others can as well. If enough individuals buy into the practice of forgiveness then it can make a scoietal concept something real.
Comment by: Rachel
7 07/15/07 10:00 AM | Comment Link |Benjamin, another “forgiveness breakthrough” for me occurred several years ago during an extremely stressful time in my life. I was embroiled in a deeply painful family conflict and I had just received a very unwelcome piece of information. It appeared that something was going to occur which was completely beyond my control and that seemed to me to be a complete travesty of justice. It felt like salt was being poured into an open wound.
I sat at the dining room table with angry tears rolling down my face and pounded the table and kept demanding, “God, give me justice! I want justice!” Then I felt that still small voice say, “Really? Are you sure you want justice? Because if it is justice for that person, then it is justice for you too. Do you really want justice? Or do you want mercy?”
I had grown up all my life hearing that if we do not forgive others, then God will not forgive us. But like a lot of Jesus’ teachings that are difficult to accept, I had managed to ignore or explain it away. But it became very real to me that day.
And as I am sitting here typing this, I am realizing that I have another situation where I need to choose to forgive. I have been waiting, thinking that I need some kind of an apology or I need to be able to vindicate myself or at least explain myself first. But I am going to receive the bread and the wine in a few hours and I need to release this before I approach the altar.
Thank you for causing me to reflect on forgiveness, Benjamin.
Comment by: Rachel
8 07/15/07 5:29 PM | Comment Link |On the subject of forgiveness…
Check out this woman’s amazing story: Holocaust Forgiveness Advocate Eva Kor
Comment by: Janice
9 07/19/07 11:29 AM | Comment Link |(CUT from my blog, I originally wrote this here, but then decided not to post it and instead I posted it at my blog. Rachel encouraged me to go ahead and share it here, so here goes….)
I wrote the following but then decided not to post it because I’m not sure its contributing anything, it feels more like purging to me. So I decided to just post it here instead.
Maybe it will be cathartic.
I have somewhat disconnected thoughts that really aren’t all that disconnected really I suppose. We are in the process of rebuilding a relationship with my 19 year old daughter who chose to make some really bad decisions, got mixed up with drugs (and not tiny ones, but big nasty ones like IV heroin) and generally screwed over everyone including her 6 year old brother. After a virtual hell and forgiving and trying to move forward, we still finally had to put her out the house - more than once - for her own good really as the only way she’d hit bottom or seek treatment. But then we were faced continually with requests to come home; alternating between sobbing pleas and screaming anger. All the professionals say they can’t come home, shouldn’t come home (for many reasons) but after several months halfway across the country, in rehab and then ’sober living’ we’ve now had her back home for just about a month. Talk about hard. Though we’d never been apart like that before, our house was finally at peace. At rest. No more screaming and arguing and anxiety…no more sleeping on the living room floor…..or locking our bedroom doors whenever we left the house….no more police at the door in the middle of the night or phone calls at all hours…no more stomach dropping every time the phone rang wondering if it would be OUR child dead this time……..
We let that go, to instead extend forgiveness, live in grace, and try dealing with trust and non-trust. I guess the point of true grace came (comes…is coming) when I stopped concerning myself so much with my things and my rights and my ‘whatevers’…even the need to fix and control…….and instead just loved. Its almost like when I came to Christ - I had to ‘give up’, let go, sort of deny self - and just go with love.
Where I am having trouble - real trouble - is with people from her past. I’m stuck in this mode of anger and resentment and I can’t seem to get to the place where I can let them in. I can forgive them and understand that they aren’t any worse (inherently) than my daughter was, they are just other kids that got messed up…but I have this inability to be in their presence. I don’t know what that says. Am I not really forgiving or extending grace? I don’t know.
Other than that situation I have found forgiveness pretty easy because I know how much I’ve been forgiven and the grace that has been extended to me. I think sometimes that people who haven’t been ‘bad’ don’t have that blessing of knowing deeply what its like to experience forgiveness and grace on a big scale. I do.
Someone said this past Sunday in a sermon that everyone was once a baby picture in someones wallet or in a photo album. There was a little baby so full of potential and ‘innocence’…something happened somewhere along the way to that baby, child, teenager, person, human being - what if someone had been there to love that person through it? To extend grace to that person? Yes people still make decisions…but you get the idea. If I can look at that person - Saddam, Bin Laden, whomever…and see that child in them, like I once looked at my daughter or your mother once looked at you, or someone once looked at every baby or child….maybe its a little easier to find some grace. ?
I try to look at my daughters old crowd that way - and I can, I can have compassion, and I want the best for them…I just can’t seem to personally be in their presence or reach out to them at this point. :(
I don’t know how that extends to nations or cultures….
Comment by: Rachel
10 07/19/07 2:28 PM | Comment Link |Wow, Janice. What a difficult situation. And it sounds like you are dealing with it with a lot of love and grace and forgiveness. I really admire you. I can totally understand why you would not want to be around your daughter’s old friends and I don’t think you should feel bad about that. I know I would feel the same way. There is a difference between forgiveness (letting go of bitterness) and reconciliation (having a restored relationship). You may experience reconciliation with your daughter but that doesn’t mean you must have or even could have reconciliation with her friends.
What you have been through is incredibly difficult and it must have drained so much out of you. It is hard enough for you to deal with your daughter’s struggles on top of raising a six-year old and dealing with all the other daily expectations of life. It’s completely understandable that you would not have anything more to give to her friends. It sounds like they are simply not your assignment from God at this time and that is completely OK.
Comment by: Staci
11 07/19/07 3:14 PM | Comment Link |Thanks for sharing this, Janice. I’m so glad that you’re experience with God helped you continue to love and forgive your daughter. That kind of grace - even when you have to do things that don’t feel “graceful” - is miraculous.
It sounds to me like you have forgiven your daughter’s former crowd, but something inside you wants a separation. I think that desire for separation is quite healthy, both for your daughter and those she used to spend time with. It would not be good for any of them to connect with people they did drugs with until they have had a longer period of sobriety. I’m sure her sponsor or rehabilitation councilor would help her determine how long that time should be (and with some it may be never.) While they may have seemed like “friends” I think at that level of drug involvement they were probably more like co-users, so would not have much else in common at the moment. So, this separation may be more of the grace that doesn’t feel graceful.
Comment by: Benjamin
12 07/20/07 6:11 AM | Comment Link |Janice,
Wow–thankyou for sharing. You have reminded me that it’s easy for me to write and talk about forgiveness without fully taking into account the intensity and enormity of the idea put into practice.
I was just saying to my own 3 year old last night “I’m your daddy, and your my daughter, and that’s a relationship you can’t really get out of–even more permanent than marriage, in some sense”. Your story reminded me of this, and how important, and difficult, it is for me to be kind to my children.