Currents of Faith: Open and Unfolding Reflections

The two branches of the Brizee family in Twin Falls were divided. The family of Leland, my father’s youngest brother, and his wife Elizabeth were one branch, my mother’s family the other. If the division were present before my father’s death, I did not know, but the chasm was accentuated following his death. My lack of understanding arises from my young age at his death.

After my father’s death it was discovered that he left no will. This was unlike him as he was very orderly and meticulous, keeping records long after they were required. In the basement were stacked piles of National Geographic magazines. The estate was probated in court to determine who would inherit what. My mother was very angry that my uncle was awarded the business, Brizee Metal Works. She received the building and Leland the business. In addition she was utterly frustrated that every check she wrote from that day forward had to be countersigned by an attorney of the court.

I have never solved the mystery of the missing will. I find it hard to believe that he had not written one. As with so many other events, my mother would not talk about this crucial happening. If the cause was unknown, the results were no mystery, my mother felt angry and cheated which left a chasm between our family and my uncle’s family.

I was a nine year old when this all transpired and my mother was my primary source of sustenance. As I matured I constructed a set of circumstances which made sense to me. My mother came into a new community where my father had been established for twenty years. He and Josephine, his first wife, had developed a wide network of relationships, both business and social. They entertained frequently and participated in several organizations, including the Masons and Rotary. Into this milieu came my mother after Jo’s death, the newcomer eighteen years younger than my father and many of his friends, living in a new home that Josephine had just finished decorating. She was ill prepared for this setting, being more introverted than Josephine and not inclined toward a wide social life. She was also extremely touchy. Cross her or harm her once and you were on her black list. You may never get off that list.

I could not solve the mystery as a boy, but I felt the results fully. We never socialized with our aunt, uncle and cousins, Marilyn and Dick. It was as if there were two worlds. In the world defined by my mother, my father was a bastard and my uncle was a thief. Neither of them was ever released from those categories. On visits to Twin Falls after moving to the cattle ranch, my brothers and I would sneak to the shop to visit with Leland and Dick. Never were we accompanied by our mother. Never would we be in their home or share a meal together. We learned to live with this divided situation.

Twenty-five years later when I was pastor at Mercer Island, I decided on a plan to reconcile our two families. I made arrangements with Leland and Elizabeth, Dick and Donna and my mother that on our upcoming visit to Twin Falls, Patty and I would host a luncheon at a nice restaurant. We would talk, hopefully even about that which had divided us for so long. I was no longer a nine year old boy. I now had some significant training in my back pocket, a doctorate in counseling and a master’s degree in ministry. Surely, I could facilitate some healing. When that day arrived, my mother would not go. Alas, my efforts came to naught, except that the rest of us had a meaningful and pleasant visit.

All this is to say that I know in my own gut what it is like to live without forgiveness. My mother died years later without dealing with that closed relationship. Clearly, my concern about forgiveness is more than academic.

My forty-two years of counseling also afforded me many occasions to face the issue of forgiveness. Clients struggled with the need to forgive in many areas of their lives. I found that one of the most prevalent causes of that need to be the aftermath of an affair. The offending partner was feeling remorse, convinced it would never happen again, fervently apologizing and asking for forgiveness. The offended was shocked, enraged, betrayed, and nowhere near ready to accept an apology, let alone forgive. Another significant cause for many women was sexual abuse in their childhood by a father, step-father, brother or neighbor. Often the offender was now living in a distant part of the country, divorced from the person’s mother, or deceased. They struggled with what to do with their overwhelming feelings toward the perpetrator.

Persons left by a divorcing partner were filled with betrayal and anger, yet could not bear to go on living with such inner turmoil. Women infected with a sexually transmitted disease by a husband or a significant other carried an unbearable burden, a constant reminder of the deepest betrayal by an unfaithful partner.
 
I was surprised to learn from my clients of the many situations similar to my own, a family thrown into conflict and separated at the death of a parent. The person acting as guardian of the parent or executor of the will was accused of pilfering from the estate or fostering a change in the will in a way considered deeply unfair to other surviving family members. Many times I heard rage shouted and saw tears flowing over such happenings.

Words I heard frequently were some variation of the following: “I know I’ve got to forgive him but I just can’t.” “I should, but I won’t.” “I just can’t put it behind me.” Even more often I heard a lament in another vein: “I will never be able to forgive myself for what I did.”

Over the years sitting with these persons and hearing them tell their stories I gradually began to understand that forgiving one’s parents is a necessary step toward their maturity. Reaching adulthood always brings into clear view the limitations of parents. From their newly attained adulthood they could see clearly those negative attitudes and actions of their parents which inhibited their own creative development in childhood. Nearly everyone could cite the particulars about their parents which hurt them. They often glossed over those particulars by saying: “Well, they did the best they could.” Usually I found that conclusion to be false. I thought it better to look at exactly what the parents said and did, then begin the process of accepting and forgiving that reality.

I had to do so with both my father and my mother, my father for his harshness, anger, and physical violence, my mother for her fearfulness, submission and mistrust. I recall vividly my work to do so, with the help of my friend Dr. Ed Turner. On that afternoon, I had my eyes closed and was visualizing when a rectangular black form appeared before me. In a few moments I recognized it as a grave site, then later, my father’s grave. There began an imaginal conversation with him, my speaking then listening quietly for any responses I heard. In this setting I came to accept my father for the first time.

I have laid the groundwork for saying that both personally and professionally I needed to understand forgiveness. I turned to both my counseling theory and my theology to offer me a pathway to do so. I can now say that a different understanding of God leads to a new understanding of forgiveness.

Our conventional understanding of forgiveness is expressed in these child-like words:
“Now kiss and make up.” “Tell her you are sorry.” “You’d better apologize right this minute.” “Just forgive and forget.” “Don’t let the sun set on your anger.” All these statements presume that there are two clearly defined persons, the offender and the offended. One did something which harmed the other. The task now is for the offender to apologize and the offended to accept the apology. The simple interaction is “I’m sorry.” “I forgive you.” The goal is that the earlier relationship which they shared is restored. All is well, the harm healed and act forgotten. Clearly, this picture is too simple.

My search took me in two directions, scripture and theology. Since I already had a grasp of my theology, I looked more deeply into what Jesus and the early Christian community said about forgiveness. Among the authentic words of Jesus were two relevant parables and a powerful saying: “love your enemies.”

One parable was about a slave who was caught stealing from his owner. His master decided to forgive him his debt and let him go free rather than exact the proper punishment which was his due. Soon after, this slave met another slave to whom he had loaned money and shouted that he must repay him immediately. Being unable to do so, the first slave had him sent to prison. Later, others told the master what his forgiven slave had done to a fellow slave, whereupon the master called him back and this time required that he pay back all the money he had earlier been forgiven. Not surprising the parable is called “The Unforgiving Slave.” [Mt 18.23-34]   The message seems clear: one should be forgiving just as one has been forgiven.

The second parable is the story of the waiting father, who though he had every right to have his second son executed for his transgression of the law, welcomed the prodigal home in an extravagant manner. The father restored the son, not because the son deserved it but because of his generosity. [Lk15.11-32]

In these words of Jesus there is a new way to deal with others beyond that which is just, fair and legal. Justice is replaced by grace; fairness by generosity; legality by forgiveness. Forgiveness is radicalized to include enemies!

The early Christian community carried forth the importance of forgiveness. They placed on Jesus’ lips the message that one should forgive not seven times but seven times seventy. They described Jesus on the cross saying, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” They created the greater portion of the Lord’s Prayer, including “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Matthew follows up the parable of the unforgiving slave, with the admonition that what the master did to the slave, God will do to those who do not forgive. A passage in Colossians, attributed to the Apostle Paul, states “forgive each other just as the Lord has forgiven you, so also you must forgive.” [Col 3:13]   Thus began an ongoing discussion of forgiveness in the Christian tradition as an opportunity or a requirement. Does one have to forgive or is one invited to forgive?

I began to read Christian authors who wrote on forgiveness. I searched their words and found that the emerging ideas which I had were different than theirs. What was I to do? Write a book, of course, what else! Just as a professor in preparing a course for students often develops that outline into a book, I would take my personal and professional experiences, combine them with my theology and see where I would come out.

As noted earlier, my starting point was a simple affirmation: When you start with a different vision of God you reach a different vision of forgiveness. I return to my earlier convictions that God is intimate, gracious, and persuasive. My understanding is that God is intimately present with us always. God never leaves us under any condition. God is a participating influence in every tiny moment of my existence. I can count on that.

So, I am never distant from God and never need to pray that God return to me. God never left. The images in our tradition which portray a distance, separation or chasm between God and us is not true in my theology. Indeed, we may feel separation, but that is a description of our emotion and not a real happening. I am moved by the words attributed to John Wesley as he was dying: “Best of all, God is with us.” For me, then, forgiveness does not require a pleading to end my separation from God.

Secondly, God is gracious. God offers new potential for my next moment regardless of what I did in the previous moment. God provides the most relevant and realistic possibility for me. Surely my action of the past moment influences the content of that new invitation in the next moment, but we can be assured that an invitation will be coming and that it will emerge from a divine wellspring of mercy and compassion. God continues to love me!

A most significant contribution of my theology is that God is persuasive. God is not the cause of hurtful events. God participates in all events but does not cause them. This understanding of persuasion can be profoundly healing to those who are angry with God because they believe that God caused some calamity, misfortune or loss in their lives. They look to the heavens and shake their fist or look down at the ground in despair. They feel betrayed by life, rights which they considered were rock bottom have been violated. “I deserved to have a healthy baby.” “I never ever thought cancer would enter my young body.” “I just knew that the one I loved would love me forever.” “It only seemed fair that our farm would stay in the family.” The old adage that “life is not fair” did not help. They had counted on the goodness of life governed by a good God.

I propose that in life there are no guarantees as much as we wish there were. Well, almost, in such a world there is only one guarantee: God will be intimately present with us. Nothing more is certain, absolute or guaranteed. Name a law, rule, constitution, treaty, ordinance, agreement, contract, vow or hand shake which offers a guarantee and quickly you will hear others tell you how it was violated.

One step in forgiveness became central to me. It is necessary to change one’s view of reality from guarantees to one guarantee. For myself and for my clients it was crucial to gain a vision of life filled with uncertainties without making either life or God into villains

In addition, I came to the conclusion that an offended person cannot enter into the process of forgiveness while still in danger from the offender. The battered wife or the sexually molested child cannot forgive when they may be offended again. A first step in forgiveness is finding safety. Moreover, I found that while reconciliation between offender and offended is of great value, it may not always be possible or desirable. To forgive does not always mean being together again. On can fully participate in forgiveness and still close and conclude a relationship. Frequently there is little basis for continuing that relationship.

Still, one measure of engaging in forgiveness according to Dr. Marjorie Suchocki is to “will the well-being of the other.” The offended may not reconcile or continue the relationship, but may choose to offer well-being. Well-wishing, as a spiritual gift, helps the offender to heal as it helps the offended to be released from an obsession about the hurt. It also moves one in the direction of Jesus’ call: “Love your enemies.”

While healing oneself, considering reconciliation, and willing the perpetrator’s well-being are of utmost importance, my theology points to another central reason for engaging in forgiveness. Openness to God’s invitations! When engrossed in resentment, hurt and especially revenge, one is not open to God. God cannot find a way into the daily life of one who is already totally devoted to getting back at the offender, holding a grudge, re-living the hurt of the offense, or constantly dwelling upon anger and betrayal. Focus, attention, and energy are consumed in these thoughts and actions. It is difficult for God’s whispers to penetrate the obsessions of the offended and unforgiving person. The door is closed. God still knocks and continues to invite, but it would seem that no one is home. To enter and live richly in the commonwealth of God, one needs to follow Jesus and listen to the Gracious One.

I do not slight the crucial and difficult task of forgiving oneself. For many of my clients it was the hardest of all. The wisdom I gained from my theology guided me through the following: after carefully walking with a person through the unforgivable situation and knowing with accuracy that which one had done or not done, it was healing to know the actions of God in those moments. God was present in the situation persuading all actors; God did not leave; God compassionately offers new possibilities and God wills the well-being of the person seeking forgiveness and all other persons who had participated in that situation. The long and short of this process is to reflect upon these questions: if God accepts me and continues to relate with me, can I do any less for myself? If the most Gracious One in the universe is with me and continues to have faith in me, can I do anything less?

While I was reaching into my theology for important contributions to the understanding of forgiveness, I was also reading books written by other authors. They expressed a variety of goals of forgiveness, none exactly like the ones I had found in my theology. Following are samples briefly stated: The goal of forgiveness is reconciliation only, the restoring of the previous relationship; the goal of forgiveness is healing hurtful memories;  forgiveness is the healing of oneself through visualization, canceling any conditions one had earlier placed on oneself and the other; forgiveness is to gain empathy for the offender;  forgiveness is a requirement in order for God to forgive you; and forgiveness is following the same steps recommended in accepting one’s own death.

The question regarding whether forgiveness is an invitation or a requirement was raised among these authors. Some authors replied invitation, others, requirement. It would be obvious from what I have said that I would lend my voice to those saying invitation, although, perhaps for different reasons than they. If God is basically and fundamentally persuasive, which is expressed in offering invitations, then God exacting a requirement would violate the central nature of God. I cannot see God inviting in most areas, but in this one area making a requirement. Consistency is important.

Those twenty-one books I reviewed are still on the bookcase in my study. Each of them offers important insights about and steps to follow to engage in forgiveness. None expressed that which I found in my theology, thus, I felt that I offered a new vision in my  Eight Paths to Forgiveness. I determined that I would describe a wide variety of situations expressing the worst possible offenses. I would put my theology to the test. Could it offer a positive word to these horrendous acts? I gave it a passing mark on the test. In the final chapter I planned a roundtable discussion among the authors and myself. Alas, the editor rejected that chapter in which the theories of forgiveness were contrasted. All was not lost. I have that chapter in my files and continue to share it with others.

I plan to write new worship liturgy which express these theological insights. I have yet to do more than imagine and sketch an outline. My wish to transform the act of confession which has been traditionally expressed in these terms: “Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison,” Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy. I would exclude these words as unnecessary because I think we already know God is merciful. God is always merciful and we do not need Jesus Christ to intercede for us with God. Rather, God is always intimately present and God’s nature is essentially merciful.

I have placed the first brush strokes of an act of confession on the canvas using the corporate “we” with the understanding that the individual “I” could just as readily be spoken in personal prayer:

“Gracious God, we are grateful that:

You are intimately present with us and that nothing can separate us from You  

You feel with us every feeling and know with us every thought

You rejoice as we rejoice and suffer as we suffer

You offer us invitations in each moment to enter Your commonwealth, a realm gifted to  us by Jesus

You deeply desire for us and for all creation to be enriched and beautiful   

You trust us to make our own choices.

We are painfully aware that

we at times doubt Your presence with us

we sense that we are alone

we do not comprehend Your feeling with us
          
we postpone, reject, neglect or ignore Your invitations 

we seek to fulfill our desires without regard for Your desires for us and all creation

we trust more often in the invitations of others and the world

For these attitudes and actions we feel remorse and

desire once again to return home

as a chick runs back to the warmth under her mother’s wing

as a wayward son returns to his father’s farm

We know, that like them, You will warmly welcome our return

For Your grace we offer You our gratitude

For Your love we offer You our love

For Your trust in us we offer You our trust.

Following Jesus we joyfully speak to you as Abba!

As this sketch implies, I came to understand forgiveness not merely as a decision made on particular occasions, but as a forgiving life style, one which is engaged in throughout all occasions. The words of Jesus, the affirmations of the early church, and the theology which I embrace, point in that direction. This life style calls me to avoid obsessions, becoming obsessed with my own actions which I regret, in which I did not do what I should have or did what I should not have done. I am not to dwell on them. Rather, I am to accept those acts, assume responsibility for them, correct or restore that which is needed, and release them, leaving them in my past.

Likewise, I am to do the same with harmful actions toward me. I am not to replay them, feeling repeatedly the hurt or anger resulting or obsessing over being unfairly treated or being misunderstood. If action is required of me, such as speaking with the offender, I should take that action. Otherwise, I should release both the events which occurred and the feelings which resulted. I need to reconsider my expectations of what should have been by affirming that there are no guarantees in life, save one, the presence of a gracious God. In both my own acts and acts taken toward me, I am placing them in my past rather than allowing them to fill my present.

By living in this manner I am actively opening myself to the invitations of God to become a more whole and beautiful person. Conversely, I am not placing my obsessions as barriers to God’s invitations. This forgiving life style has become my goal, one which I do not always reach. This is my vision, one which is both difficult and enriching.

As a footnote, I arranged for a gathering following the fiftieth high school reunion of my brother and me. Three brothers, Harry, Harold and I, went to Dick and Donna Brizee’s home in Twin Falls for a luncheon which included their adult children and their spouses. We had a delightful time nearly forty years after my first try. As we brothers stood together for photos they all agreed that we each looked like a Brizee. Reconciliation had come! I felt good!