"No Future Without Forgiveness"

When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission invited victims and perpetrators

        of South Africa's apartheid tragedy

                to join together in a national narrative 

                        of confession and forgiveness,

                                few people could anticipate the global spiritual lesson

                                        that would follow.

Not that there hadn't already been 

        quite a few surprises in South Africa.

The world had watched in amazement

        as black and white South Africans crafted 

                a "relatively peaceful...transfer of power."

Instead of a "horrendous bloodbath" 

        as "so many had feared and so many others had predicted,"

                the new South Africa soon had a democratically elected President,

                        and a promising future.

 

But those who had waited long and suffered much for this future

        still deserved justice.

Criminals had to be held accountable.

Families needed to know 

        what had happened to loved ones,

                missing and dead.

A nation sought a way to "affirm the dignity 

        of those who for so long had been silenced,"

                to validate their memories 

                        and restore their personhood.

Deciding that neither a blanket amnesty

        nor a war crimes tribunal such as Nuremberg

                fit with the African style of justice and healing,

                        the leaders chose a third way:

                                "granting amnesty to individuals 

in exchange for a full disclosure..." 

This third way became the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

                

South Africa's problems were not entirely resolved

        with the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

                and its limitations have been criticized.

Though many voiced their contrition,

        that is not all that people need.

There is still work to be done.

Some say that only reparations and compensation 

        for suffering and disadvantage

                will now help people get on with their lives.

 

What is remarkable, though, 

        is the extent to which 

                people have been able to get on with their lives.

The lessons their experience can teach us are essential

        to understanding the role of forgiveness 

                in sustaining relationship.

How they did it

        is an example we would do well to follow.

 

One example is Desmond Tutu himself.

As a Quaker observer wrote,

        "Tutu is...a master of forgiveness.

                The insults and harassment he endured under apartheid –

including finding a baboon fetus 

        hung up in his garden –

                would have leveled an average person."

But Tutu was not alone.

That same Quaker journalist mentioned

        "parents struggling to forgive their child’s murderer...

                [while] he [was] living placidly next door 

                        and driving his victim’s bloodstained car."

People were leveled.

Yet still they struggled to forgive.

And mostly, they did succeed.

 

"What is it that constrained so many to choose to forgive

        rather than to demand retribution,

                to be so magnanimous and ready to forgive

                        rather than to wreak revenge?"

According to Tutu, the answer resides in a fundamental value

        in African culture:

                the essence of being human

                        is to be inextricably bound up

                                with other people.

As he says,

        "A person is a person through other persons.

                I am human because I belong."

Whatever happens,

        it is good to stay together.

Forgiveness is what allows people to stay together.

 

It is so simple.

And yet, as I review my personal history,

        until I thought about the South African experience

I never realized that 

        virtually every broken relationship in my life

                is broken because someone refused to forgive.

 

Sometimes I was the one who refused.

Perhaps I didn’t want to do the work,

        taking the lazy, low road away.

Sometimes it was the other way around.

However sincere, timely and complete I made my apology,

        I was never really forgiven.

So the relationship ended.

 

Sometimes people need to separate for their own good.

Some broken relationships may be unavoidable.

But the essence of our humanity

        is inextricably bound up with others too,

                and separation is not a natural state.

Forgiveness is a survival skill,

        for it sustains life as well as relationship.

 

Despite our need for forgiveness,

        what makes it difficult to request or to give

                is our reluctance to admit our faults,

                        or to humble ourselves,

                                in the presence of others.

And yet this is what forgiveness requires.

This story from the early Christian desert tradition,

        contemplatives who sought solitude to learn compassion,

                makes the point.

"A brother had committed a fault 

        and was called before the council.

The council invited the revered Abba Moses to join,

        but Abba Moses refused.

They sent someone to get him,

        and he agreed to come.

He took a leaking jug,

        filled it with water and carried it with him to the council.

They saw him coming with the jug 

        leaving a trail of water,

                and asked,

                        'What’s this?'

Abba Moses said,

        'My sins run out behind me and I do not see them,

                and today I am coming to judge the error of another?'

When the council heard these words

        they forgave the brother."

 

To forgive, you must know your own faults.

To seek forgiveness,

        you must also know your own faults.

There's no escape from acknowledging

        that we are faulty, 

                often stumbling through life,

                        and without regular acceptance of this fact

                                none of us would be speaking to each other anymore.

 

That wonderful children's story I read earlier,

        "Harriet, You'll Drive Me Wild!"

                teaches children that even the most patient mothers

                        get angry and yell sometimes.

Harriet makes another mess,

        mother finally loses her temper,

and everything falls apart –

        for the moment.

Then Harriet's mother admits she’s sorry:

"I shouldn't have yelled,

        and I wish I hadn't.

But sometimes it happens, just like that."

 

True forgiveness requires truth.

It asks us to be honest about ourselves.

As Desmond Tutu writes,

"Forgiving and being reconciled are not about pretending 

        that things are other than they are...

True reconciliation exposes the awfulness...

It could even sometimes make things worse.

It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile,

        because in the end

                dealing with the real situation helps to bring real healing."

 

We all can imagine what Harriet's childhood would have been like

        with a mother who yelled

                and never admitted she was wrong

                        or said she was sorry.

Most likely poor Harriet would have grown up

        believing that she was a bad child,

                responsible not only for her own mischief

                        but for her mother's anger as well.

She wouldn't have learned 

        how to be honest about herself

                and seek forgiveness.

She wouldn't have known how to go on 

        after something bad happened.

Harriet's accident-prone childhood is a far cry

        from the dehumanizing violence of apartheid South Africa.

Some kinds of mischief are much easier to forgive than others.

Some kinds of wounds are more easily healed than others, too.

What the South African experience demonstrates, however,

        is that even the worst kinds of mischief can be forgiven

                and the deepest wounds can be healed.

The proof that this heroic people have offered to the world

        is clear:

                they did it,

                        and we can do it too.

 

"If we are going to move on 

        and build a new kind of world community," Tutu writes,

                "there must be a way in which we can deal with a sordid past. …

True forgiveness deals with the past,

        all of the past,

                to make the future possible.

We cannot go on nursing grudges even vicariously

        for those who cannot speak for themselves any longer.

We have to accept that what we do 

        we do for generations past, present, 

                and yet to come.

That is what makes a community a community

        or a people a people –

                for better or for worse."

 

How timely are these words from South Africa 

        when long held grudges in another part of the world

                once again cost human life 

                        and end hope for a future of peace.

There is another way to the future.

It takes only the courage 

        to look honestly at ourselves

                and at others;

                        to humble ourselves in seeking forgiveness,

                                to honor others in offering it;

and to move on, together, 

        vulnerable and flawed,

                but triumphant 

                        over all that has the power to divide us

                                and make us less than we really are.

That is what it means to be fully human;

        the future waits for us to find our way to it.

Sources:
"No Future Without Forgiveness," by Desmond Tutu (New York: Doubleday, 1999)
"Harriet, You?ll Drive Me Wild!" by Mem Fox (San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 2000)
"Sheep and Shepherds," by H. Stephen Shoemaker
"Harsh politics, extravagant forgiveness," by Sarah Ruden, in Christian Century, July5-12, 2000