Forgive? I have much more to be forgiven for than to forgive. The years between 1950 and 1979 are filled with things I did to hurt other people. It wasn’t deliberate or malicious but that doesn’t excuse the fact that I did hurt people, sometimes severely. I either didn’t know or worse, didn’t care, that I hurt them. I was fighting my personal demon and in those years he was winning all the skirmishes. In the process of defeating, or at least imprisoning that demon, I had to take an honest and searching inventory of my past and all the people I had hurt over the years. Once I completed that I had to “confess” (tell) some person I trusted what I had discovered. The final step was, where possible, to make amends to all the people I had hurt. It was bitter medicine but absolutely necessary. That “inventory taking” has been an ongoing process since the first time I did it. Every so often I become aware of having hurt someone that I hadn’t realized before. To make it right I have to go through the same process: Tell a trusted person and make amends where I can. Most recently was only a few months ago when I came to the realization that I had said things teasingly to my oldest daughter, when she was still living at home, that were hurtful. I told my wife and later apologized to my now 50 year-old daughter. I’m not sure she forgave me, but I have done what I had to do. I’m sure there will be more “enlightenments” as I contine to live on.
That doesn’t mean that I haven’t been hurt by others and found it hard to forgive. For many years I nursed resentment towards my dad for something he did that hurt me deeply. In my junior year of college I was chosen in a stiff competition to be one of a few student conductors who would have the honor of conducting a concerto played by the university symphony orchestra in a formal spring concert. It was truly the first honor I had earned in my entire 3 years. Like any kid –of any age- I wanted to “show off” before Mom and Dad even though it meant they would have to drive a little over a hundred miles from Caney to Wichita. They knew the date well ahead of time. When the time came I called home and found that the workers at Sinclair Oil Co., where Dad worked, were contemplating going on strike. The union meeting when the men would decide was the same night as my debut as a conductor. Dad chose to go to that meeting. Came the night of the concert I did my thing, turned to take my bows to the audience, and then quietly went “home” to my room filled with hurtful anger and resentment. “How could a union meeting be more important than witnessing an honor earned by your youngest son?” ran through my mind.
That resentment simmered in me for decades. Finally, in the same “inventory taking” process I had to use to make amends for hurtful things I had done I also had to flush out old resentments and forgive the person who I felt wronged me. It was hard, and the “hurt” has never gone away, but I came to understand why Dad did what he did and forgave him.
There are a few other things that people did that hurt me but to the best of my human ability I have forgiven those people. For me, a recovering alcoholic, nursing old hurts is sucking on a poison teat. The poison I drink is called “resentment,” and the only person hurt by my resentments is me. So it doesn't make me a "saint" or anything like that to forgive. It's actually in my own best interests. But then, God commands us to "Love our neighbor as ourselves." Licit self-love is what God expects of us.