Chris: I hear you but -simultaneously- think you have missed something important.
Evangeline has, in fact, forgiven her husband. She does not for one minute excuse what he did, but she decided not to let his terrible conduct ruin everything else for her. She still loves him and is waiting for his release, which won't be for quite a while yet, years. However, the church where he once was a pastor, has not forgiven him and has, in the bargain, decided that Evangeline is persona non grata because she has forgiven him. I attended this church at times in the past, as recently as 2015, a few months before the scandal broke. As I recall, at least one sermon was about forgiveness as a Christian virtue. But when push comes to shove, well, forgiveness is not such a hot idea. It is very easy to see their problem. The husband was a pastor there, his actions were a huge betrayal of everyone's trust. Indeed, in a similar situation, say as a member of a board of deacons, to speak hypothetically, what would I do? You tell me; I have no idea what I would do. But one thing is very clear, forgiveness is not an Absolute at that church. Should it be an absolute? What do you think? What if it was your church? What would you do? And keep in mind that Evangeline was a regular participant and played a role in various programs there for women. She was respected and had at least a hundred good friends there. Now she cannot put her foot in the door. What about 7 or 8 of the kids -for whom any thought of forgiveness is completely out of the question. And can you blame them? I cannot. But what about Evangeline and what it all has done to her? What if you were one of those kids? It is so easy to talk about forgiveness but then there is the real world. What further complicates everything is how the husband tried to make up for his sins even if, at that time, the story was still a secret. Among other things he financed a trip to Africa for the girl, which wasn't cheap, and a variety of other favors. When the story did break the girl said that she forgave him ,but then someone told a female homosexual lawyer and the lawyer contacted the girl and dangled riches before her eyes and she -the girl- forgot all about forgiveness. There are all kinds of lessons to learn from this saga but none that can solve the problems which have resulted. -------------------- As far as my former brother is concerned, this isn't a case of his saying bad things about me and then, well, OK, forgive and forget. He destroyed artwork I had done for my mother each year at her Birthday and Christmas, every year since some date in the early 1980s. He trashed it all. He also destroyed all the art that Grace -the name of the girl I had tutored in 2013- 2014 - gave to mother as a gift. My hope was simply to obtain this art and give it back to Grace. But Robert destroyed all of that, too. Out of spite for me, I guess, maybe on the theory that this art was something I treasured and what better way to injure me? Similarly with the art I had done for mother. Forgive him WHILE he continues to lie about me, continues to deny that any of the art was present in the house (a blatant falsehood), and has somehow conned my sister, where Robert is now staying, that he is being truthful and that I am doing the lying ??? He doesn't know when to quit lying, and this has gone on every year since early 2016. What about approximately 30 years of my art gone forever? What if it was your art? "Oh, that's OK, time heals all wounds?" Huh????? What if, since art isn't your background, it was 30 years of your business plans or research or math solutions? And what about the precious art done by the girl -who never did anything at all to hurt Robert? Robert destroyed all of that art, also, about 40 or 50 drawings. All of this from a mama's boy who refuses to grow up. Why do you suppose he now lives with my oldest sister? Except for a couple of years when he was still college age and in college, Robert has never lived on his own. Gotta tell you, sure he has psychological problems, but he also needs to take responsibility for himself and face his issues like a man. Which he simply will not bring himself to do. "Forgiveness" for a mental defective who can't tell right from wrong? That, in my opinion, would be an absurdity. It would not mean one damned thing to him -unless it would be relief at not needing to admit his crimes and lies- and it would prevent me from internalizing a vital lesson in life, thus injuring myself. This isn't about a "scab" that falls of, it is more like an arm or a foot that has been chopped off and can never (never) heal the way things once were. I get the impression that we aren't talking about the same kinds of personal problems. All kinds of stuff in ordinary life can be forgiven -sooner of later. I understand that very clearly. But these are anything but sins from ordinary life as anyone in a normal family understands things. >From a few things you have said along the way I had the impression that your own experiences included at least a few really baaaaaad times that defy all rules of normal life -with a terrible price in pain to pay. This is not an exercise in theoretical theology, from behind the picket fence of a middle class family where most days all is well and there isn't a cloud in the sky, or from the perspective of a posh suburb where only perfect people live. This is about reality. Billy --------------------------- ________________________________ From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Chris Hahn <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2018 4:18 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [RC] Re: Transcendence vs Reconciliation Re: Forgiveness issues Billy, Those are compelling stories and I would not suggest that Evangeline excuse her ex for what he did or that you excuse your brother. If Evangeline is now less bitter and better able to enjoyably engage in her life, after the creep went to prison, that suggests to me that she might have been able to transcend the transgressions of her ex, for her own sake. This could be done without excusing his actions. Likewise, in the case of your brother, “The damages he has done to my life and now the life of my oldest sister, are irreparable.” I get that the damage to your relationship may be irreparable and your willingness to excuse his actions is beyond the scope of anything you would consider, but if you can transcend the injury to he did to you (let the scab develop and fall off, albeit with a scar), then you might be able to move into the future with less resentment. I wouldn’t necessarily call this forgiveness; rather, it is a way to move into a more contented place in life. Chris From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Billy Rojas Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2018 11:38 AM To: Chris Hahn <[email protected]>; [email protected] Cc: Billy Rojas <[email protected]> Subject: [RC] Re: Transcendence vs Reconciliation Re: Forgiveness issues Chris and Ernie: Good comments from both of you. But let me sort of put everything to the acid test. I doubt if any of us, in discussing forgiveness, is speaking in a vacuum. I also think that we each, to some extent, assume everyone else somehow "knows" what kind of problem is being discussed even when it is very different in each case. I have mentioned Evangeline at times in my e-mails. She is a good lady friend and a 'study in forgiveness.' Various of my remarks relate directly to her and what she has gone through in the past 3 years. That was when her husband, then an assistant pastor at an Evangelical church, was found out to have gone through a period -about a decade previously, when he had sex with one of his and Evangeline's adopted daughters, then a girl still in middle school. You do not need to imagine that it tore the family apart and caused a furor in the church. For Evangeline it was the most horrible time in her life. She had no idea and out of nowhere everything around her collapsed. The result was that her husband ended up in prison, where he is currently serving a lengthy sentence, and most (not all, but most) of the children, almost all of whom are now adults, turned against her precisely because she ultimately forgave him. This is all public record, I'm not saying much of anything that isn't known to all sorts of people here in Eugene, and elsewhere, except, of course, for the things that go on within a family, about which I'm only saying the minimum. The story goes much deeper than I can possibly tell you. Not in any way to excuse anything that happened to the girl, but her reaction, once the story was in the open, was utterly depraved. She found a female homosexual lawyer who insisted that the girl not only file a lawsuit against the man but also against Evangeline for supposedly being complicit. Despite not being aware of her husband's transgressions Evangeline would not defend herself because, so she told me, her heart was not in it, a consequence of all the turmoil in her life and the struggle she went through to forgive her husband and then deal with rejection by most of her kids (her own and the adoptions, about a dozen altogether). The outcome was that not only did the husband lose his wealth of about $2 million, Evangeline lost most of her wealth as well, another million and a half or so. She does not live in poverty or anything like that but her standard of living is now maybe 20% of what it once was. Meanwhile the girl, who is black, BTW, now lives in a posh deluxe community near Portland, she has married a Muslim, and, despite eventually confessing to Evangeline that she knew her case against her was phony, never gave back even one penny of all the money she was awarded. Yet Evangeline still forgives her. So, the issue of "forgiveness" is front and center in my life each and every month because of my friendship with Evangeline. And, while I think I understand where Evangeline is "coming from," and sometimes think she has done exactly the right thing, sometimes she has, as I see it, gone too far and should have drawn a line on how far she should have gone. >From my perspective it is all too easy to see the strengths as well as the >weaknesses of the Christian view of forgiveness. So, when we talk about forgiveness, it is not some kind of abstract topic for me, it concerns how forgiveness has impacted the life of dear friend who means the world to me. This isn't "Sunday school stuff." This is cruel reality and very hard-to-take effects on human beings. Then there is my former brother, who has made a career of lying about me and wrecking as much of my life as possible through cover-up of his lies. No way in hell can I forgive him for anything. The damages he has done to my life and now the life of my oldest sister, are irreparable. So any conversation about forgiveness has to take into account actual people we know and must be person specific. No way could any kind of forgiveness issue Ernie is having, or Chris, be anything remotely like the kinds of issues I need to deal with. Maybe this explains things... Billy ________________________________ From: Chris Hahn <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2018 9:40 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>; Billy Rojas Subject: RE: Transcendence vs Reconciliation Re: Forgiveness Re: [RC] Religious Faith and the Problem of Evil ......... Excellent comments Ernie, about the differentiation between reconciliation and forgiveness. Yes, we will generally be better off if we can transcend wounds imparted by others and put the injury behind us. The transcendence is for our benefit, not theirs. On the other hand, if there is reconciliation, both parties benefit. The common use of forgiveness may or may not mean all of the above. Chris From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Dr. Ernie Prabhakar Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2018 4:54 AM To: Billy Rojas <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: Centroids Discussions <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Transcendence vs Reconciliation Re: Forgiveness Re: [RC] Religious Faith and the Problem of Evil ......... Hi Billy, On Nov 12, 2018, at 7:04 PM, Billy Rojas <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: My point was simply that forgiveness has to be appropriate or it can backfire on you. Lots of good things in life are like that, including love. Someone can love the wrong person, after all, someone who is abusive or violent or irresponsible. We all know people who have loved someone who was wrong for them and paid a terrible price for "wrong love," to put it that way. You know, that is a fantastic point. I think you may be on to something. Modern Christianity has a deeply confused understanding of forgiveness. As Chris mentioned, the English word is overloaded with many different connotations: The first sentence of yours, above, exemplifies the point I was trying to make. I think the problem with the Tibbits definition of forgiveness is that it runs counter to the common use of forgiveness. It could be better stated as, put the evil ones in your past, as much as you can, so you don’t get impeded by their evil. Maybe we Radical Centrists can come up with some better terminology. One possibility is to distinguish between “internal” and “external” forgiveness: how we treat ourselves versus how we treat others. Perhaps we could use a word like Transcendance for the internal aspect of forgiveness. Like Chris said, we want to put the evil ones in our past, rather than being consumed by revenge and anger. I think you once described it as being “objective” and taking the long view, rather than caught up our sense of being wronged. What a lot of people imply when they say forgiveness is more about the other person, and might be better termed Reconciliation: “hey, don’t worry about it, we’re all good.” As you rightly point out, God has a REALLY high bar for reconciliation. It requires repentance, restoration, and rebuilding of trust. It is completely conditional. On the other hand, Transcendence is an unconditional practice, very much like the Buddhist idea of Compassion. In meditation, we seek to free ourselves from the personal sense of injury in order to be able to see the bigger picture and make wise choices compatible with our long-term values and vision. We refuse to be controlled by the wrong others have done to us. This could help us better understand verses like Ephesians 4:32: Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Yes, Christ on the cross transcended his enemies by asked God to forgive them. But he also made it abundantly clear that He will come back to punish those who don’t repent. Does that clear things up? — Ernie P. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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