With this orientation in mind, we turn to examine some key questions relating to forgiveness, reconciliation, and their community applications. It is a practical way of preventing the pain of the past from defining the path of the future. It's important to recognize that if you attach too many conditions to forgiveness it may become almost the opposite, with characteristics akin to being vengeful or vindictive.
Anger, sorrow, rage, and despair are a part of the process, and may be the launching pad for forgiveness. Essentially, this means that we do not endlessly replay past gripes and grievances; it is rather the ability to live with the hurt without being held captive by it; it means not being defined by those who have hurt us and not being broken by our own victimhood.
It would be a mistake to impose a false uniformity onto highly diverse forgiveness perspectives. Forgiveness can be viewed as a cognitive process, a narrative or journey, a philosophical position, or a combination of these. However, definitions of forgiveness have tended to express some commonality.
Sells and Hargrave conducted an extensive literature review of empirical and theoretical forgiveness studies. They found that every definition or theory of forgiveness they encountered contained each of the following underlying principles:. But the first five elements, when combined, are good starting points in a discussion about the process of forgiveness. Reconciliation refers to the restoration of fractured relationships by overcoming grief, pain, and anger.
The path toward reconciliation can also be described as a lifelong journey going in two directions: It is both an intrapersonal and an interpersonal exercise, each aspect advancing the more deeply a person discovers that reconciliation is possible both within and without. For some, forgiveness is a personal decision as part of their own self-healing process: Forgiveness liberates people from the resentment and anger that they have carried with them. Some feel inspired to forgive, because they experience compassion for those who have hurt them; others see a spiritual value in forgiveness, because they recognize that we are all connected and are therefore each individual is in some way responsible for the pain in the world.
When it comes to the specific role forgiveness may play in community building, we can offer these propositions:. A first step in community building is recognizing that we are all capable of harm, given the right circumstances. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.
And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? When Kemal Pervanic, a survivor of the notorious Omarska concentration camp in Bosnia , returned to Bosnia some years after the end of the war, he recognized the cruellest of his former Serb camp guards standing by the road hitch-hiking. The image caused Pervanic to react in way that might seem surprising — he started to laugh.
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I laughed because I remembered the monster this man had been. But now, hitch-hiking alone on a dusty road, he looked almost pitiful. I believe every human being is capable of killing. This is well demonstrated in the case of Palestinian Bassam Aramin, and Israeli Rami Elhanan, who both lost young daughters in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The answer was that I had — my people had, for ruling, dominating and oppressing three-and-a-half million Palestinians for 35 years.
Another way forgiveness and reconciliation promote community building is that they allow people who were once hostile towards one another to live together again. Forgiving past wrongs may be a key to reconciliation between friends, family members, spouses, neighbors, races, cultures, and nations.
More complete reconciliation means that we engage co-participants honestly and respectfully in the construction of a newer world through meaningful and faithful relationships. The process results in decreased motivation to retaliate or maintain estrangement from an offender despite his or her actions. Salimata Badji-Knight was brought up in a Muslim community in Senegal , where she was circumcised at the age of five.
Hearing this made me happy, as it created a closer relationship between the two of us and I no longer blame her for what happened to me. In addition, before he died, I was able to have a good talk with my father. I opened my heart to him and explained how female circumcision could affect you physically and mentally. He cried and said that no woman had ever explained the suffering to him. Then he apologized and asked for forgiveness. The next day he called my relatives in Senegal and told them to stop the practice. As a result, a meeting was cancelled and 50 girls were saved. Finally, forgiveness can help end violence.
She has spoken about the horror of seeing her good Christian friends destroying everything she had worked for with their Muslim neighbors. In a similar vein, Kay Pranis, a pioneer of restorative justice in the United States, is convinced that while the victim has a right not to reconcile with the wrongdoer, the community must accept an offender when he or she transitions from prison back into the neighborhood Cantacuzino, , p. In both of the above examples, as well as in the case of the Israeli Rami Elhanan, citizens who may not be directly responsible for a conflict nevertheless take responsibility for repairing the harm.
This recognition of the interconnection of all human life seems a key component of forgiveness. As the psychologist Erik Erikson , famous for his work on the conceptualization of identity, put it: In Post -c onflict Situations. Forgiveness can help reconcile two opposing sides in almost any situation. However, in the midst of violent conflict it may not be safe or expedient to talk about forgiveness. It is a concept that irks some people, and to suggest forgiveness when past grievances are currently being played out — when people are hell-bent on survival on the one hand, whilst destroying the enemy on the other — may be insensitive and counter-productive.
In P eace - building. Forgiveness can be a critical ingredient in rebuilding broken relationships and repairing damaged communities. It can be an important part of any peace-building process, and sometimes the only thing that can help divided communities move toward reconciliation. Festering trauma so easily has the capacity to become festering dehumanization; since both sides may believe there is risk in equality, they therefore adopt fear-based thinking such as: They realize I want to listen and learn. And they too have learned from me.
When the L aw is I nadequate. Forgiveness can be especially advantageous when the law has been inadequate in exacting measured retribution. Justice is dependent on the existence of an authority perceived as just; so when that is absent, who then can bring justice? But if you try to move forward without attending to the pain and the hurt of the injustice and the trauma of the past, your move forward will probably be illusory, and you will carry some of that difficulty into the future and into your relationships as an individual or as a community.
In South Africa, leaders sought to attend to the hurt of injustice and the trauma of the past through formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as noted below. In , Amy Biehl , an American student working in South Africa against apartheid, was stabbed to death in a black township near Cape Town. The first time I saw them on TV I hated them.
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I thought this was the strategy of the whites, to come to South Africa to call for capital punishment. I was very confused. They seemed to understand that the youth of the townships had carried this crisis, this fight for liberation, on their shoulders. It is fundamentally a moral relation between self and other. Engaging in the P rocess of F orgiveness. Experiencing forgiveness either towards self or others can have a constructive, life-altering effect as part of the process of healing personal pain and trauma as well as building more peaceful communities. But much of what has been said about forgiving others also applies to forgiving yourself.
While there is no set order of actions to take, one may start with putting an end to self-punishment. This involves letting go of your self-hatred and self-pity. As with forgiving others, self-forgiveness is not about forgetting about the past or excusing bad behavior. It is about taking responsibility, healing, and changing. It is also worth noting that self-forgiveness is different from forgiving someone else in one important way, in that it must be about reconciliation. When you forgive another, reconciliation is a choice; but an important part of forgiving yourself is to integrate your previously unacceptable characteristics so that you can accept all of who you are without self-sabotaging, which can lead to self-abuse or any type of addiction.
Luskin makes a helpful distinction by breaking self-forgiveness into four main categories:. These categories can overlap; for instance, you could be upset with yourself for your alcohol abuse and the impact it has on your spouse. Self-forgiveness can also be an aspect of interpersonal forgiveness. While you can be angry and upset with someone else for hurting you, you can also be angry and upset with yourself for the part you may have played.
Learning to forgive yourself gives you the freedom to heal, let go, and move on. It is a tool that allows you to become more self-aware. Moreover, some believe that you cannot forgive another until you have learned self-compassion and self-forgiveness. In this sense, forgiveness is a movement of compassion; and learning to forgive yourself is an important step in learning to become a forgiving person. When aggression leads to injury, pain, and shock, people may go through different phases to deal with their hurt. The following stages may apply to the experience, thought processes, and actions of individual victims or perpetrators as well as whole groups:.
Highlights and lessons from many of these stories are presented below. However, it is important to keep in mind that not everyone experiences all of these components, nor necessarily in the same order. Forgiveness is not a fixed process and it may have no completion. Triggers throughout life might throw one off course again; therefore it is probably more helpful to think of forgiveness as a direction, rather than a destination. Brenda's father pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and served two and half years in prison. I still felt a deep level of anger at myself for ever trusting my father, demonstrated by my over-eating.
It was while taking a course in spiritual psychology that I recognized how with each negative thought directed at my father I was re-wounding myself. Camilla Carr, who was taken hostage in Chechnya in , held captive for 14 months, and repeatedly raped, says: Dyer couches her great grief in the language of almost playful domestic annoyance: The first three words alone manage to say everything about the absurd and paradoxical gift of our human love: A rough deal all round, then — but in their perfect articulation, poems like this offer as much assuagement as there is to find, and keep the fire of love burning way beyond the lovers' own deaths, its raw intimacy as present as ever.
When Larkin said "What will survive of us is love", he meant nothing so uncomplicated and unequivocal; but even he put the accent on us. My dearest dust, could not thy hasty day Afford thy drowsy patience leave to stay One hour longer: But since thy finished labour hath possessed Thy weary limbs with early rest, Enjoy it sweetly; and thy widow bride Shall soon repose her by thy slumbering side; Whose business, now, is only to prepare My nightly dress, and call to prayer: Mine eyes wax heavy and the day grows old, The dew falls thick, my blood grows cold.
Draw, draw the closed curtains: My dear, my dearest dust; I come, I come. The weight, as it were, of an eyelash. When he was Cameron Mackintosh Professor at Oxford, Patrick Marber asked me how tutors resist the charms of their pupils. But sometimes youth exacts its tribute and beauty renders all that red ink irrelevant.
Love poems: writers choose their favourites for Valentine's Day
John Fuller 's witty wishful-thinking is purely Platonic: The things about you I appreciate May seem indelicate: I'd like to find you in the shower And chase the soap for half an hour. I'd like to have you in my power And see your eyes dilate. I'd like to have your back to scour And other parts to lubricate. Sometimes I feel it is my fate To chase you screaming up a tower Or make you cower By asking you to differentiate Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I'd like to offer you a flower. I like the hair upon your shoulders, Falling like water over boulders. I like the shoulders too: Your collar-bones have great potential I'd like your particulars in folders Marked Confidential. I like your cheeks, I like your nose, I like the way your lips disclose The neat arrangement of your teeth Half above and half beneath In rows. I like your eyes, I like their fringes. The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk. I like the way your elbows work. I like your wrists, I like your glands, I like the fingers on your hands. I'd like to teach them how to count, And certain things we might exchange, Something familiar for something strange. I'd like to give you just the right amount And get some change. I like it when you tilt your cheek up. I like the way you not and hold a teacup.
I like your legs when you unwind them. Even in trousers I don't mind them.
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I like each softly-moulded kneecap. I like the little crease behind them.
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I'd always know, without a recap, Where to find them. I like the sculpture of your ears. I like the way your profile disappears Whenever you decide to turn and face me. I'd like to cross two hemispheres And have you chase me. I'd like to smuggle you across frontiers Or sail with you at night into Tangiers. I'd like you to embrace me.
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I'd like to see you ironing your skirt And cancelling other dates. I'd like to button up your shirt. I like the way your chest inflates. I'd like to soothe you when you're hurt Or frightened senseless by invertebrates. I'd like you even if you were malign And had a yen for sudden homicide.
I'd let you put insecticide Into my wine. You are the end of self-abuse. You are the eternal feminine. I'd like to find a good excuse To call on you and find you in.
I'd like to put my hand beneath your chin, And see you grin. I'd like to taste your Charlotte Russe, I'd like to feel my lips upon your skin I'd like to make you reproduce. I'd like you in my confidence. I'd like to be your second look. I'd like to let you try the French Defence And mate you with my rook. I'd like to be your preference And hence I'd like to be around when you unhook. I'd like to be your only audience, The final name in your appointment book, Your future tense. It's rather like a film scene from the lazy 50s or 60s, early Fellini perhaps, though the action described takes place in ancient Rome.
A man tells of drowsing on his bed in the heat of the day when his girlfriend arrives wearing next to nothing — and what happens next. The man-to-man intimacy of Ovid's voice is astonishingly modern in its urbanity and hedonism, but the poem's most seductive quality resides in the voluptuous lapidary quality of Latin into Elizabethan English via bold Marlowe.
I once bought a woodcut by John Nash because it illustrated this very scene, complete with half-curtained window supported by wittily phallic stanchion. In summer's heat, and mid-time of the day, To rest my limbs upon a bed I lay; One window shut, the other open stood, Which gave such light as twinkles in a wood, Like twilight glimpse at setting of the sun, Or night being past, and yet not day begun; Such light to shamefaced maidens must be shown, Where they may sport, and seem to be unknown: Then came Corinna in a long loose gown, Her white neck hid with tresses hanging down, Resembling fair Semiramis going to bed, Or Lais of a thousand wooers sped.
I snatched her gown; being thin, the harm was small, Yet strived she to be covered therewithal; And striving thus, as one that would be cast, Betrayed herself, and yielded at the last. Stark naked as she stood before mine eye, Not one wen in her body could I spy. What arms and shoulders did I touch and see, How apt her breasts were to be pressed by me! How smooth a belly under her waist saw I, How large a leg, and what a lusty thigh!
To leave the rest, all liked me passing well; I clinged her naked body, down she fell: Judge you the rest: It's on such a large scale "O my America! My new-found-land" and at the same time so exquisitely detailed — it seems to take on the whole world. I've been in love with Donne for ever because of this poem. Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy, Until I labour, I in labour lie. The foe oft-times having the foe in sight, Is tir'd with standing though he never fight. Off with that girdle, like heaven's Zone glistering, But a far fairer world encompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear, That th'eyes of busy fools may be stopped there. Archived from the original on 4 March Archived copy as title link. Rome GA , London, Everyman, , p. South Atlantic Modern Language Association. The Review of English Studies. Ritual and the Rood: London, University of Toronto Press, , p. Cambridge University Press, , pp.
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England. The Dream of the Rood: Oxford University Press, A Guide to Old English. Blackwell Publishers, , p. Inscription, Performance, and The Dream of the Rood". Heathen Gods in Old English Literature. Cambridge University Press , , p. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature 2nd ed. Broadview Press, , p. Malden, MA, Blackwell, , p. The Dream of the Rood. Retrieved from " https: Old English poems 8th-century poems Christian poetry English folklore Northumbrian folklore Visionary poems.
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