david hayward. artist. cartoonist. teacher.

The other day I wrote a post on The Ten Tests of Forgiveness. A few people wrote me and expressed appreciation for the post, and it found it’s way across the web. But I got a few comments and some emails asking how to forgive. Testing whether or not you have forgiven someone is one thing. But how do you forgive in the first place? So, here’s another list of how to forgive:

1. Command. I know it will surprise some of you that I’ve started with this one. I grew up with a very developed sense of responsibility. I’m a first-born, as well as strongly influenced by a fundamentalist evangelically conservative pentecostalism. So when my Father tells me to forgive or else I won’t be forgiven, then I have no choice. I’ve taken a softer view of it since. I now understand that the command to forgive helps me to set myself in that direction. It inclines me to set my heart’s default setting at “Forgive!” So as soon as I have been hurt, my obedient mind forgives and waits for my wounded heart to catch up knowing that my bruised body will drag itself along later.
2. Desire. I remember once catching myself praying, “God, I can’t forgive so-and-so, but I want to.” Although I have never been in this situation, I have met people who refuse to forgive. They have no intention to, and they see no necessity in doing so. They will hold on to that offense forever. Without the intention, the action will never follow.
3. Self-awareness. Once wisdom enables you to understand that you would have been capable of the same evil that has been inflicted upon you given the same circumstances the offender was given, forgiveness is the only option. This is the beginning of empathy.
4. Apology. When the person apologizes for the pain they’ve caused you, it helps you to soften your heart towards him and let the offense go. Especially when you can hear in their apology that they are truly disturbed by their behavior and you also hear sincerity in their promise never to do it again.
5. Restitution. I will have to admit to you that this doesn’t happen very often. But once in a while the person who has hurt you will apologize, ask for your forgiveness, and make every possible restitution for the damage they’ve caused. I know one time when I was really hurt in a very serious way, and the ramifications of the offense included my whole family, an apology eventually came. But restitution for the abiding damage it caused would have helped reverse the effects of the offense and speed reconciliation’s arrival.
6. Faith. When Jesus taught about forgiving someone who has hurt you 7 times a day, the disciples said, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17) He said that having faith the size of a mustard seed is enough to move mountains into the sea. My personal take on that whole passage is that that it is not about performing physical miracles. Rather, it is about how faith creates new miraculous realities. The mountains represent offense. With a little faith… faith in yourself, faith in the offender, faith in unity, faith in reconciliation, faith in relationships, faith in love… with a little faith, habitual offenders can be forgiven, reconciliation can happen, relationships can be restored, and love can conquer all.
7. Prayer. When something painful has been done to me by another, I often feel that it is beyond my power to release that person. Prayer, in all its forms, is an acknowledgment of my feelings of powerlessness, and that something that seems superhuman is being required of me. Like forgiveness. Prayer opens me up to a deeper potential.
8. Revelation. I remember after having been seriously hurt by someone, I wondered how I would ever be able to forgive that person. One day I suddenly realized that this person was acting out of his own hurt. In fact, it was a hurt he probably thought I had inflicted on him. It was a flash of insight that I would call revelatory. Instantly, my heart changed towards him, and I knew I had forgiven him already.
9. Dream. This has happened to me many times. I will have a dream in which the one who has offended me appears. We approach each other and embrace. When I awaken, all the negative emotions and feelings are gone. I find it very peculiar, but it works. It is like the dream is an actual act of forgiveness and reconciliation.
10. Art. Sometimes a painting, a sculpture, a film, a song or a story will break my resistance to forgive. This has happened so many times for me. It usually catches me totally by surprise. I will be watching a movie, when all of a sudden the dam breaks and I will catch myself weeping. I will realize that it is my heart softening and allowing itself to forgive and love that person again.

Maybe some of you can add some of your own ways you have found help you to forgive.

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Okay. I’ve been through a lot in the church. I’ve experienced some pretty traumatically nasty things. Church split. Fired. Resigned. I’ve experienced countless loss of friends, betrayals, and abuse. I’m not whining. I’m just stating some facts because I want to talk about forgiveness. Something I’ve had to do many times. As it has been done for me.

It’s interesting when these things come up in conversation, the topic of forgiveness often comes up too. Some super-spiritual people assume that if you go through these horrendous things and you still feel the pain of it or talk passionately about the trauma, then you haven’t forgiven. I just don’t agree with that at all.

I was saying to Lisa yesterday that I wish I was like some wise guru who could, after he’s been seriously hurt, just take a deep cleansing breath and let it all go instantly… like a balloon. But I’m not a wise guru. No argument there.

I was talking with a friend the other day and we were asking ourselves how you know when you’ve forgiven someone. What is the test of forgiveness? Here some things I’ve concluded:

1. First of all there has to be the admission that the person really did hurt you. It doesn’t do any good denying that he didn’t actually hurt you or that you didn’t feel it. Forgiveness can’t even begin with this attitude.
2. It certainly doesn’t mean you no longer feel the pain of what happened. Forgiveness can be extended to the one who wounded you. But it doesn’t mean the wound loses its sensitivity.
3. It is important to say “I forgive you!” Or, if it isn’t possible or prudent to say so to the person, to pronounce, “I forgive so and so!” Speaking truth into our situation is a powerful reshaper of reality.
4. You are willing to consider restoring the person to the original nature of their relationship with you before they hurt you. Willing. But in some cases this would be unnecessary and even unwise.
5. A test for me has been that I have been able to have a cordial conversation with the person(s), and even have coffee together or a meal. This isn’t always necessary, or wise, and sometimes not even possible. But when I felt it was possible, safe enough and helpful, I’ve done it.
6. Trust is often seriously damaged. It is valid to acknowledge that perhaps the person can’t be trusted with the responsibility to be trusted at the level you trusted him at. Read that again. I meant it.
7. The hurt doesn’t deliver dysfunction to your life anymore. You have genuinely been healed of the cancerous dis-ease. When the memory emerges from out of the depths by surprise, it doesn’t completely derail your life for an extended period of time.
8. You are able to speak positively about the person (if that is possible). You can look beyond the personal hurt she inflicted upon you and see that she is not necessarily a monster, but that she is human just like you are, sometimes prone to make mistakes that hurt others, and that she has the chance to move beyond such destructive behavior.
9. You can do all the above without them acknowledging their wrongs or apologizing for the wrongs they’ve done to you. Often people hurt us completely unaware of the ramifications of their destructive words or behaviors. I say this because Jesus exemplified this purest kind of forgiveness when he forgave his murderers. They didn’t know what they were doing.
10. Final and most important test: you are willing to risk loving and trusting again.

There could be more. But hey, you know me with my lists of 10.

I’ve been thinking about empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Without empathy we will never be able to enjoy dialog with one another.

I have formulated a test for myself to determine whether or not I am truly empathetic: can I sincerely express that person’s opinion or tell their story in such a way that that person would agree with it?

Here are the three scenarios I actually find myself in where this test is employed:

1. The church I was pastoring went through a devastating church split in 1997. It was a horrendously destructive to so many relationships. The church, even though it survived… barely… will always bear the gruesome scars from that crisis. I have kept a journal for decades, so I have a carefully documented report of the ordeal. And I have to tell you: it is a bizarre story that would make a Frank Peretti novel read like non-fiction. But I have withheld sharing that story because I realize it is just from my perspective. Of course. I am waiting for when I can tell the story and it be appreciated even by those who I believe were the antagonists. They believe they were sincere and innocent. If I can’t write the story with that dynamic at work, then I will have failed to tell the whole story.
2. The second scenario that requires empathy from me is this blog. I am particularly concerned with how I can be in dialog with those who have strongly differing beliefs than I do. How can I create a space where liberals, moderates, skeptics, agnostics, atheists, evangelicals, and fundamentalists can communicate? How can we continue with a conversation that has obviously become emotionally charge because our prized positions are at stake? This, I am convinced, requires empathy. If I can’t understand and articulate with sincerity a fundamentalist’s position, then I have failed to contribute to true dialog.
3. The third scenario that I believe requires empathy is the situation in the world today. We are witnessing a more intense polarization of religious positions. We are seeing the polarization of Arabs and Jews, Muslims and Christians, fundamentalists and moderates and liberals, atheists and believers, and so on. I believe that it is incumbent upon us all to understand and even empathize with the opposite party. For instance, I think it is extremely necessary for Christian fundamentalists to understand Islamic fundamentalists and vice versa. I think it is critical for believers to understand atheists, and vice versa. And so on. Until this begins to happen, we will never get to a place where we can actually empathize with our polar opposites and perhaps come to a place of agreement where eventual peace will be made manifest.

It is basic psychology that what we hate most in others we are often most blind to in ourselves. It is called transference: where we impose upon our “enemy” the attributes about ourselves that we refuse to recognize. It is a healthy, important and urgent step for us all to take in order to enjoy the unity that is ours to have.

This is empathy 101.

It is unfamiliar to him. He’s adjusting. It’s only been a few months since he left. On Saturdays he still feels the anxiety of unpreparedness. On Sunday mornings he still awakens in a panic. The habit of attending is not all that lingers in his flesh. It is the habit of constituency. It’s the habit of position that clings to his foundation. All that is gone. He knows. But there are receptors at a cellular level that still crave its chemical. The place and the event was so much a part of his life for so long.

He’s discovered something he already knew: there is life beyond its walls. There is wonder and worship, compassion and commitment, generosity and giving, prayer and praise, learning and living. The defrocking he self-imposed has dressed him in a liberty that always laid beneath. The fetters have fallen. He lives and learns and loves without the clerical ecclesial constraints.

He still loves that into which he was conceived, to which he was bound, for which he gave, and from which he was born. Not denying the one, he’s been thrust into the All.

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I had an interesting and enjoyable conversation with a young man today. He wanted to talk with me about building a community based church. He said that there are all kinds of materials out there on traditional models of doing church. But there is hardly anything out there concerned with building a church that emphasizes relationship and community. Almost all material out there is on how to tweak style, not substance. He asked me if I knew of any. No, not much. He said that he’s saved a file of all my posts on community. He wanted to talk with me about it. So he called me and we had a good chat.

Here’s some of the things we talked about:

1. There are no rules to follow. If few are doing it, then they are doing it in their own unique contexts with their own unique people in their own unique way. There aren’t grand general rules that apply to all situations.
2. It’s like being a pioneer or an explorer. I have a good friend who teases me about comparing what I did as a pastor to being an explorer. I admit: my physical life is not in danger. I’m not living on seal blubber and sucking on snow in sub-zero temperatures. The dangers I faced are different. But they are just as real. It is no joke pioneering this kind of church community. It is serious business. And it takes a great deal of courage. But if you value it, it’s worth it. What materials are out there on doing what he wants to do? Hardly anything. Are there materials out there on how to be a pioneer? What does that take? Guts. Resilience. Period.
3. I compare what I was trying to do with being a family. My family would rebel if I tried to be their autocratic, charismatic, visionary leader. Businesses and countries are a whole other matter. If you want to build a corporation, then be that kind of leader. If you want to build community and be a part of it yourself, treat it like family.
4. Flexibility. You have to do it one day at a time. Although you might have some general values that you embrace, strategizing weeks or months or years ahead is a futile exercise. It’s like your family: you have values. You can generally plan ahead. But if you have kids, you know that each day is a new day and must be executed freshly.
5. Be openly humble. Admit to your people that you don’t really know what you’re doing or how this is going to turn out. You are learning one day at a time. You are learning and discovering together. You are not the all-knowing leader.
6. He was concerned about burn-out. Lisa and I found it interesting that we couldn’t tell if we were always working or if we were just always hanging out with our friends. That’s what community is. I rarely met people in my study. I always avoided the feeling of clinical. That’s not family. Rather, we always met over coffee, lunch, or wine in the evenings. And Lisa and I made it a point of taking an evening or two to ourselves and a day on the weekend. Easy-peasy.
7. Smaller groups help glue the community. Each smaller part strengthens the larger part. This is where everyone gets to play, experiment and experience community up close and personal. However… and this is something else I’ve discovered over the years… a smaller group with disgruntled members can cause problems.
8. Chaos theory: it is messy, unpredictable and unattractive. When people discover a place where they can experiment in authenticity and encounter the authenticity of the other, sparks fly. Some start fires that destroy. But some start fires that warm the heart. People won’t flock to it for it’s appeal. But those who want to experience community will trickle in.
9. This kind of community can attract very needy people. Some stay and find healing. Some stay until they figure their needs aren’t being met according to their liking and leave. This can include the pastor ,)
10. My experience is that money can be a problem with this kind of community. If you want community, it takes volunteerism. Which means you can’t employ the tithing campaign. You will rely on people’s goodwill. Which sometimes runs thin. But those who believe in what you are doing and value such a community will bless it beyond their means.

This is just a start but I ended at 10. I like lists of 10.

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