This holiday season, in kitchens and Zoom rooms all around the country, there is one topic that will almost certainly be brought up over and over again: Forgiveness.
This would be true even without the looming threat of Coronavirus Christmas hanging over our heads; the last four years of acrimony and accusations have been exhausting, and many, if not all of us are eager for a chance to just have everything “go back to normal.” And for most people, “normal” means not being so damned angry all of the time. Or if not angry, then fearful and sad. Hence the national call to forgive. To move on. To start fresh. To let it go, even if there never is an actual “sorry.”
It sounds noble, doesn’t it? Taking the high road. The problem is, it’s never going to work if we are the only people up on the high road, and the people we are trying to forgive are still down in the ditch.
When you forgive people without them doing anything that makes them worthy of forgiveness you are not holding them accountable. You are keeping them comfortable, and as everyone knows, no one ever changes when they are comfortable.
I am thinking of what happened with the Wayne County Board of Canvassers. For those not familiar with the story, two of the board members initially refused to certify the election results. (In case you were wondering, this process is almost always a routine formality.) Unfortunately for them, the next meeting was public (on Zoom), and the resulting hours worth of public acrimony and disgust encouraged the two recalcitrant members to take the less incendiary route, and approve. As soon as the cameras were off, however, they attempted to rescind their votes.
While they were being held accountable for their actions (which included such egregiousness as actually suggesting that they only certify the results from the white areas of the county), they seemed to show the potential for change. As soon as the pressure was off, however, they relapsed.
Less immediately, and more terrifying, I am also thinking of what’s happening in Rwanda. Thanks to the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” even Americans are familiar with the massive genocide that occurred there in the 1990s, as well as the national Reconciliation Boards that followed. It was, everyone thought, a model for how to forgive. One that I am sure will be cited around holiday tables all over the country (it certainly was four years ago). But four years ago we didn’t know that even after Paul Rusesabagina (the man profiled in the movie) publicly forgave the president of Rwanda, he would one day be taken back to Rwanda against his will and arrested. (This happened three months ago—he is in jail still.)
Forgiveness is important. I get it—I recently celebrated my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and as someone once said, the secret of a long marriage is a union between two good forgivers. But even more important than forgiveness is communication—it is vital that both the forgiver understand what they are forgiving, and the recipient understand what they are being forgiven for, not to mention the fact that these two items need to be the same.
In a perfect world both parties come to realize the exact nature of the transgression, and agree wholeheartedly on the best way to make amends. In a more realistic world, both parties simply agree that “mistakes were made” and move on. In the “Groundhog Day” world we are currently living in, however, we ignore the underlying problems over and over again and repeat our mistakes every day (or every four years) until we hopefully one day learn our lessons and move on. In this instance, the lesson that needs to be learned is to not forgive people who haven’t made any effort to earn that forgiveness. No matter how uncomfortable that makes our family dinners.
I’m hoping that this year will be the year we finally learn that lesson. For all of our sakes.