Milestone

Blogs are funny things and because you are publisher, editor and author, a personal blog is always “The Number One Source For What I Happen to be Thinking About” (to use the words of one of my favorite bloggers, BradleyWright). Right now, I am thinking about writing, and specifically (because I like to think about me a lot) my writing. This is the 200^th Arena-Man post. And this week, the 10,000^th visitor visited. A vast majority of this traffic was since I started posting consistently in January (and, I think, this was the wrong webpage for many a poor Googler). I might meta-blog too much (i.e. blog about blogging). But it’s my blog, so I can meta if I want to.

I’ve recently been approached by a few friends and acquaintances and thanked for my thoughts or for encouragement via Blog. I’m usually not quite sure how to feel about it. Firstly, it’s a bit startling to realize that real people actually read my stuff. When I spit out a few paragraphs on this or that subject, apparently it might actually have implications. It’s also strange to know that people are in my head; by my writing, I have opened the window of my soul and let strangers peep in. This creates an unusual sort of relationship: one that is unidirectional. And I suppose this has always been true of writing. The thoughts or ideas or visions of one person are transformed into black ink on white paper (or in your case, photons from a monitor) which are sensed by the retinas of another, and translated back into an idea. You send paper by mail, data by internet, and ideas by writing.

Writing allows for worldview to be shared. It allows the eyeballs through which one person understands the world to be shared by others. But unlike conversation, the relationship is unidirectional. The reader gains something from the writer, but the writer learns nothing of the reader (except, usually, how many companions he has; that is, the number of books sold, page-views, etc). And this has traditionally been the only way.

But the Internet has allowed for a new paradigm. It has allowed for readers to directly interact with the writer, and in real time. Not only does the writer transmit his ideas, but readers can reply with their reactions. Requests for clarification, challenges, encouragements. The little “comments” box at the bottom of posts and the “share” button of Facebook allows for conversation. It allows aspiring writers to express themselves in a single line or several. It allows those who want to transmit the ideas they agree with to their friends. And it allows enemies (real or philosophical) to engage directly. It allows for strangers from around the world to sit down to a cup of tea and discuss ideas like neighbors and friends, or to debate in chivalry, like esteemed opponents.

As you might know, discussion on deep questions is one of my favorite things to do. I get so excited when I find out someone has initiated a discussion; someone has become that first commenter, that first person to step out of the anonymous crowd into the Arena. Consider the discussion that took place when I discussed Fairy Tale Romance. I was so encouraged to hear from people I hadn’t talked to in forever. And I learned something from them. What had been a theory in my head could be interpreted in light of others’ experience. A discussion on Scientific Faith and on Alexandra Wallace have been electric, and in both cases, my argument was challenged, clarified, and through the conflict, strengthened.

I realize that writing is something I really enjoy and really want to get better at. And it makes me happy that what has been a hobby of mine has been an encouragement to others. Thanks for reading! I hope to hear from you in the comments.

Beauty Fast

Sterile floors. Sterile hands. Sterile computers. Sterile people. White walls. White ceiling tiles. White tile. All illuminated by fluorescent white lights. Straight halls, every room like every other. Uniforms. Doctors: Blue scrubs, white coats. Patients: hospital gowns (with open back). Beeping monitors. Beeping pagers. Beeping intercom. Beeping, beeping, never-heeded, never-ceasing beeping! An arms race of volume and pitch! No music, not even in doctors’ voices. They are flat and sharp like scalpels. No touch but through breathless gloves. Dry hands, chapped by alcohol sanitizer. And the smell. The musty smell of the hospital interrupted only by periodic nasal stabs by the alcohol on the way in and out of every room. And the occasional whiff of urine or feces or vomit. These are the ingredients of the Hospital Aesthetic.

And so after six days of this, I was hungry, but not for food. I was hungry for something else. My soul needed a drink. I needed transcendence.

I went to church and two lines into the first song, I was struck by the beauty and truth of it and I shed a tear. I felt great joy because of a story that was told. I felt deep humility and power in Communion. I returned home and, it being Sunday and a beautiful day, I had an overwhelming and unexplained urge to go for a bike ride. So I hopped on my bike and rode a few miles down the road. I thought of beautiful places on campus and then biked to them to take in more beauty.

The straight lines and curves of the Stanford arches towered above me, showing me my smallness. The tiny little leaves whirled around me, showing me my greatness. The tan brick, blue sky, yellow sun, green trees, black road, white clouds. The smell of dirt and a thousand thousand plants. Wet hands from sweat, unwashed and greasy from the bike. The bright sun, so bright I had to squint. A full spectrum of light, to make the bluish bulbs of the hospital seem silly, like the photocopy of a diamond. The sun showed through in beams and streaks, through the canopy of the endless oaks.

I ate the experience of today like a starving man. My eyes drank in the light like a lost man drinks an oasis. When I had finished, I was rejuvenated. I had taken my fill. And I am ready to endure another week of sterility.

The body withers away if it lacks food; the immune system weakens, the strength fades. What about a soul? What would happen to a person who is starved of transcendence, who never sees beauty, who never sees something so beautiful that it brings tears? Could this weaken a soul (psyche) as starvation of food weakens a body? What happens to our psychic immune system when we are not properly nourished?

The Power of Forgiveness (Part 5)

The Light (taken in Kurialand in Kenya above my favorite valley)

I remember talking with a friend about forgiveness and she was skeptical of the idea because she thought it would make her weak. After all, the one who offended her might see it as weakness. He might continue to take advantage of her goodness. She reasoned that force must be met with force, not forgiveness.

In Alabama, an army of pedestrians rose up and defeated a powerful public institution in one town. Later, all across the South, thousands rushed to volunteer in this army, swelling the ranks of soldiers. This unarmed army fought against enemies who had on their side fire hoses, German Shepherds, guns, firebombs and perhaps most fearfully, the Law.

The battles raged on, but the guns and bombs didn’t seem to matter. That army could not be stopped because they were immune to the weapons of their enemies. The proverbial sword still slashed and still drew blood. But suddenly, drawing blood didn’t matter. It seemed that they possessed a far more subtle power, a deeper magic. They were made more powerful by their wounds. Like Obi Wan when Darth Vader struck him down, these brave soldiers gained power with every baton blow, imprisonment and dog bite. Every weapon of their enemies was powerless.

Those who opposed that Southern army thought that men are ruled by fear, that hatred and violence are the ultimate weapons. But that army knew something more powerful, more unstoppable than fear. They were ruled by hope. And to the despair of their enemies, they wielded the most powerful weapon of all: love. Consider the words of one of their generals:

...throw us in jail and we will still love you. Threaten our children and bomb our homes and our churches and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hours and drag us out on some wayside road and beat us and leave us half-dead, and as difficult as that is, we will still love you. But be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer and one day we will win our freedom.

This preacher started his statement the way he did because his family was threatened. His house was bombed. This man understood the secret and unstoppable power of forgiveness and love. Because he knew that secret, he did wear down his enemies by his ability to suffer, he and those he led. In the end, Dr. Martin Luther King and those who followed him were ultimately victorious (though skirmishes still persist today).

One of the great secrets of this life is that when we are hurt, we have all the power. We have the power to hold onto the offense, grasping it like a thumb screw in a torture device. But we may, if we choose, unscrew it; we may release the one over whom we have power. And by our mercy, we may gain a brother. Obi Wan’s post-death powers kinda sucked. But for us, when we are hurt, we gain the power to draw a person into our family, the Family of God, by forgiveness. If we hold onto an offense, two people are enslaved: we become enslaved to managing the debt, and we gain a slave by his debt. When we forgive, two people are freed: ourselves and our newfound brother.

And this is what makes heaven possible. Esau wanted to murder Jacob his brother; there would be nowhere on earth or in heaven where he would be free if he held onto his grudge. Heaven is a place for free men and free women; slaves of hatred or greed or lust cannot enter. And perhaps this is for the protection of the slaves; it would not be paradise for Esau to spend all eternity with his sworn enemy, now immortal and un-murderable. But after he forgave his brother, eternity with one he loved would indeed be paradise. The same goes for every grudge and affair and war.

Jesus sets the bar pretty high. “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” This is why Jesus was so serious about forgiveness being a requirement for heaven. A person cannot take a grudge past the pearly gates. If he is to enter, he must leave it at the door. A burden so large just won’t fit. In the end, Hell will have no veto on Heaven.

In Heaven (that is, when Heaven comes down to Earth), there will be many sets of enemies mutually present. There will be Romans and Vandals; there will be invaders and invaded; there will be the cheated on and cheaters; there will be Nazis and Jews; there will be white plantation owners and black slaves; there will be robbers and the robbed; there will be murders and the murdered; there will even be Dodgers fans and Giants fans. How can it be paradise for them all? Why won’t the joy of some of them cause the misery of others? How can all these enemies share the same space? Only through forgiveness.

And so we may all enter together into the Light of Forgiveness. We all have offended our brothers and sisters and friends and enemies and mothers and fathers and even God. When we ask for forgiveness, we can all have debts forgiven. And when we bind together others of our brethren, drawing them in when we forgive them, we may leave at the great gates of towering pearl, all our debts: those that we owe to others, and those that others owe to us. This great pile of unforgiveness, hideous, dark and stinking, will be left behind to be burned outside the City like refuse. Then we will stand there before those wonderful and shining off-white gates before the City of God, and they will open before us. And we will be dazzled by the Light of God, unencumbered by our own debts or even our heavy book of debts owed to us. And then, to the sound of trumpets, we will run together into that glorious Light, free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty that we’ll be free at last.


"On Forgiveness" Table of Contents

Part 1 - A Story

Part 2 - Short Cuts - What Forgiveness Isn't

Part 3 - Straight and Narrow - What Forgiveness Is

Part 4 - Vengence Cancer - Why Forgive?

Part 5 - The Power of Forgiveness

Vengeance Cancer – Why Forgive? (Part 4)

Mary Johnson’s only son was murdered by Oshea Israel. What would you do? How would you feel? How long would you hold onto the rage and hatred? I think most of us would probably hang onto it for a long time. But Mary decided to live our her faith. She forgave Oshea and now treats him like her own son. She said:

Unforgiveness is like cancer. It will eat you from the inside out. It's not about that other person, me forgiving him does not diminish what he's done. Yes, he murdered my son - but the forgiveness is for me. It's for me.

When we are hurt by another, it’s like we’ve contracted a cancer. It is a malignancy that grows inside us so long as we refuse to acknowledge it is there. As soon as we do, we must cut it out. If it is bad, we need to go through a long and painful process of chemotherapy, purging it from the multitude of locations in our life that it has spread. If we deny it exists, it grows. If we cover the symptoms, it grows. If we do anything but cut it out, it grows. We have no other options if we are to live. We must cut it out.

We think we should forgive others for their sake. After all, they hurt us. And forgiveness does indeed liberate others. But forgiveness also liberates us. We become free when we free others. Someone once said that revenge is a poison you drink thinking it will kill another. Perhaps the greatest benefit of forgiveness is that you can be free from the wrongs of others.

If you refuse to forgive, you are a slave to them. They, your enemies, cause you distress even after they’re done interacting with you. As a master over a natural slave, they are in your head, affecting your mood, influencing your behavior. And so we have a world of slaves, people unwilling to forgive.

Nelson Mandela, a powerful opponent of Apartheid in South Africa was in prison 27 years for his work. And doubtless he suffered terribly at the hands of his jailers. Upon gaining his freedom, he said:

When I was walking out of my compound for the last time, I said to myself, they've had you 27 years. If you hate them when you get through that door, they will still have you. I wanted to be free, and so I let it go.

We must forgive if we are to be free. We must forgive if we are to cut out the cancer. We must forgive if we are to have life, and to have it more abundantly.


"On Forgiveness" Table of Contents

Part 1 - A Story

Part 2 - Short Cuts - What Forgiveness Isn't

Part 3 - Straight and Narrow - What Forgiveness Is

Part 4 - Vengence Cancer - Why Forgive?

Part 5 - The Power of Forgiveness

The Straight and Narrow – What Forgiveness Is (Part 3)

Money! (Kenyan Shillings)

So what is it that we’re supposed to do? Being Christian, I’m going to start with the Bible (and if anyone wants to summarize another holy book in a paragraph, I’d happily post it here). Jesus tells us to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”. This is sometimes translated ‘trespass’, but I like the financial metaphor better. We (especially Americans) understand what it’s like to have debt. We’re told to pray that those debts we hold before God are cancelled, forgiven. And we’re told to give the same courtesy to those who have withdrawn from our goodwill. Peter once asked Jesus for an upper limit to forgiveness (John might have been getting on his nerves AGAIN and he was sick and tired of it). He tried to high-ball it and suggests, “Even up to seven times?” Jesus, with his usual wit, says the number is more like, “Seven times seventy times.” Jesus explains elsewhere that our forgiving others is a requirement for entrance into the Kingdom of God.

But what does it mean to forgive? The New Testament uses aphiēmi, meaning literally, “To send away.” Forgiveness is to count it as loss. If it is a debt, it is written off. It goes into the “business losses” for the year. It cannot be repaid because it no longer exists. You can never send a collections agency after it. It is finished. It is not forgotten, for you have a record of your generosity; a ledger recording your heavy losses. If it is a wound, it is healed. It is not tender, red, infected, or pussing. It is healed. And healed doesn’t mean invisible. Wounds, when cleaned, leave scars. But they don’t leave gangrene.

Consider the words of Desmond Tutu, the Anglican bishop who fought apartheid in South Africa and one who has great experience with wicked, wicked deeds:

Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing.

Forgiveness is not easy. It may be the hardest thing we’re ever asked to do in this life. It’s one of those things we’re asked to do as Christians that we can only advance toward and rarely (if ever) fully achieve in this life. Or perhaps more accurately, we can achieve it fully only for a moment; the more mature we are, the more of our moments we can achieve it. I categorize it with Jesus ridiculous command to, “Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect”. So if you haven’t mastered it yet, don’t get too worried.

What’s so hard about it? It means that you have to take what is your right, and give it up. You have to humble yourself to the one who hurt you. You are making your position equal again with the one who owes you; relatively, by lifting your debtor up, you no longer can stand above him. And for a proud person, this is simply impossible.

But I think the hardest part about forgiveness is identifying why something hurt. To clean all the dirt and filth out of a wound, we must wash the wound with the salt of self-examination. Some of the filth of the wound, and some of the pain, is our own. It was on us before the wound was made. We must scrub away all the blackness and scab and grime, until we get to fresh, clean blood. And this hurts.

So you were insulted. Why isn’t your own opinion of yourself before Heaven enough? Why are you placing your self-confidence in the mouth of your insulter?

So you were robbed. Why are you upset at financial loss if you have placed your faith in Heavenly things?

So your trust was betrayed. Haven’t you also betrayed others? What right have you to be self-righteous against your betrayer?

How do we know we’ve forgiven? I think a fair test is one proposed by Reformed theologian Lewis Smedes, “You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.”Love is a good proxy for forgiveness. I think also pain is a good measure, certainly for people early in their walk, maybe for all. If it didn’t bleed, you didn’t scrub hard enough.

Forgiveness hurts. Perhaps that’s one thing that all the countless animal sacrifices in ages past were meant to teach: forgiveness is messy. It’s costly. It’s bloody. But it must be. It’s much easier to pretend. Turning a blind eye to wrong is something that our culture seems particularly adept at. But as Tutu explains above, pretending to forgive, or avoiding forgiving are not forgiveness. And only by forgiveness will we ever find true healing.

"On Forgiveness" Table of Contents

Part 1 - A Story

Part 2 - Short Cuts - What Forgiveness Isn't

Part 3 - Straight and Narrow - What Forgiveness Is

Part 4 - Vengence Cancer - Why Forgive?

Part 5 - The Power of Forgiveness

Short Cuts – What Forgiveness Isn’t (Part 2)

Shortcut through a cornfield

Forgiveness. We say the word a lot, but I don’t think many people really believe in it. I suggested once that someone forgive her friend, I quoted Jesus’ advice, and said that it would help with reconciliation. She was skeptical and asked, “Sure it’s true. But it won’t work. Not in real life. Will it?” Forgiveness might be a nice concept, but what are we supposed to do? What is forgiveness? Is it practical?

Before we talk about what forgiveness is, I’m going to talk about what it isn’t. There are a lot of ways to short-cut forgiveness. These allow us to look really righteous without the hard work. Too many people, especially good Christian people, are far too quick to say, “I forgive you” or to apologize without forgiving and think the issue settled. When we take the short cut, we end up lost in a land of vengeance and hatred.

One way we can short-cut forgiveness is by partial forgiveness. In the story of the son who plundered the family business, most of us would probably go the partial forgiveness. We forgive enough to get him under our thumb as an employee. But we certainly don’t forgive all. The son knows forever more that he is inadequate. And we know that we’re justified in being his master because of what he did. And there is no reconciliation. We would prefer a slave to a son.

Another way we can short-cut it is to say something that counts as an apology, but isn’t forgiveness. You can say, “It’s OK,” or worse, “No problem”/”It’s cool”. “It’s OK” may be most accurate, “Our relationship is now mediocre because of what you did to me,” but that’s not forgiveness. When one person incurs a debt, it’s not even anymore. One owes the other. “No problem,” is almost always a lie, an escape from having to actually do the hard work of forgiving. It was a problem. It did hurt you. Pretending like it didn’t hurt is the worst thing you can do. It leaves the debtor unforgiven and now somewhat sorry that he asked for forgiveness in the first place (after all, it was “no problem”).

True forgiveness requires the debt be acknowledged. It requires the offended to realize that he was offended, and to honestly come to terms with how bad it hurt. This is often a very difficult step because it means we have to know ourselves and think about our feelings. This is hard for Americans, and downright terrifying for American males. But think about it: financially, you can’t write off “business losses” on your taxes without known how much your business lost (or you’re cheating on your taxes… which is not the subject of this post).  If you want to communicate about your imprudence in Vegas your statement, “I lost some money in Vegas” might mean “I lost 500 nickels in the slots in Vegas” or “I lost 500,000 dollars on roulette in Vegas”.

Like all human failures, there are plenty of great reasons to take the short-cut. First, we do it because it’s easier. Its hard work to hike down the straight and narrow trail of forgiveness; the smooth road of superficial apology is far easier. But there’s another great societal reason to take the short cut: Relativism. We’re taught from a young age that there is no such thing as sin or offense or debt: the feelings of being offended are imaginary, irrational constructions of a moralistic society.

The problem with this is that we cannot, try as we might, believe that Offenses are imaginary. Everyone, when he bothers to consult his own experience, knows that offenses are real. Even those who firmly deny an objective moral realm have the real subjective experience of being hurt, of being owed something by another. Whatever its origin (societal programming, human instinct, or from On High), we feel bad when another person hurts us.

And so we are stuck. We feel bad when we are hurt; we make others feel bad when we hurt them. And it doesn’t get better with apology. In fact, it makes it worse. With short cuts, we live in a world of make-believe, living like we have the sublime thing when we don’t. We settle for quick and superficial ‘reconciliation’ and give up hope on deep and lasting reunion.

"On Forgiveness" Table of Contents

Part 1 - A Story

Part 2 - Short Cuts - What Forgiveness Isn't

Part 3 - Straight and Narrow - What Forgiveness Is

Part 4 - Vengence Cancer - Why Forgive?

Part 5 - The Power of Forgiveness

On Forgiveness: A Story (Part 1)

A son once disgraced his family. He publicly shamed his father and plundered the family business. He disowned his family and left home, taking the money that had taken two generations to accumulate, years of work by his father and grandfather, blowing it in a year (think Harry and Floyd in Dumb and Dumber if it were R-rated). At the end of the year, he was jobless, homeless and hungry. The economy had soured, and he found in a real financial mess.

Out of options and ideas, he thought about going back home. He considered applying for a job at his dad’s company. Maybe his dad would let him have a minimum-wage job. But at least he’d have benefits. His dad was a good employer. At least there he’d be taken care of. But how could he show his face there? He had spent the profits of the last decade in a single year. He had disowned his family and embarrassed them terribly. He figured he had nothing to lose, and made for home.

When he arrived, his father saw him. If you were the father, what would you do? Could you forgive him? Should you forgive him?

I think this question is at the heart of a lot of human problems. The more generous of us might grant his request and put the son to manual labor. He didn’t even deserve that, but we’re good people. Many wouldn’t even grant him that. He had his chance and he blew it. He made his bed; now let him sleep in it. He wanted to disown the family? Fine. Now let him be an orphan.

But why? Why would we treat him like we do? Because we’re all keeping score. The son has a debt to the family, and it hasn’t been paid. In his case, because of the debt is too large, it could never really be paid. And so we think he should be treated as what he is: a debtor; one who must work for us because he owes us.

But the story doesn’t end like we would end it. The father sees the son coming in to ask for the minimum-wage job. The son begins to ask, but the father cuts him off, hugs him tightly and restores his managerial position as if nothing had happened. He calls all the family friends to tell them that his son returned and invites them all over immediately to celebrate. He exclaims, “My son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!”

 What is the old man thinking? What did he do? And why did he do it? He forgave his son. His property was lost.

"On Forgiveness" Table of Contents

Part 1 - A Story

Part 2 - Short Cuts - What Forgiveness Isn't

Part 3 - Straight and Narrow - What Forgiveness Is

Part 4 - Vengence Cancer - Why Forgive?

Part 5 - The Power of Forgiveness