Monday and forgiveness

Reading the Sunflower, a collection of essays on the concept of forgiveness, subttitled “On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness”.  The context of the book is Simon Wiesenthal’s story of his encounter with an SS officer, while Wiesenthal was still a prisoner.  The SS officer was dying , and had asked to speak with a Jew so that he could confess his crimes– which included setting a building on fire, and watching the building’s occupants– a mother, father, and children –jump to their deaths to escape the flames.  The SS officer wnated to confess to a Jew– any Jew—- and request forgiveness.   Wiesenthal remained silent, but later, after the war, he visited the officer’s mother in Germany.  She, a widow who had lost her only son, spoke of the good child her boy had been, and how it had broken his father’s heart to see him go first into Hitler Youth, then the SS.  Wiesenthal only told her that her son had asked him to bring her greetings.  He did not tell her about the circumstances, and did not tell her what her son had confessed, as he did not want to add to her suffering.  In his book, Wiesenthal has posed the question of whether he should have forgiven the SS officer, and he has gathered a wide range of answers from people like Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, and other politically and socially well known persons.

 Forgiveness is one of my personal philisophical bugaboos– in practice, I have been to both extremes.  I have held certain grudges for.  I have tried too hard to forgive someone who had actively and enthusiastically backstabbed me and caused real emotional and economic harm. 

 I recently had a bit of a dialogue with a friend on the subject of forgiveness.  We were discussing someone who had committed an enormous wrong– but the wrong- doer seemed not only blithely unaware of having done wrong, but had gone further, and blamed his own ugly actions on the person he had most wounded.  My friend told me there was a concept called “radical forgiveness.”    I was taken aback.  What is the purpose of “radically forgiving” someone who was not even willing to admit what he was doing was wrong? The easy answer is, well so, you yourself, the forgiver,  may experience the healing power of forgiveness.

But I don’t think forgiveness is necessarily an end in itself.  Healing the world is the object of my religious, spiritual path.  But healing doesn’t necessarily mean deconstructing experience, or understanding.  Personally, and I struggle with this, I think forgiveness is over-rated and misplaced.  What we need is to let go of recriminations and retributitons.  One of the most powerful things we can do is not to say “I forgive you”, but to say “Let’s start over, from here.”  Can you imagine what the Middle East would be like if today, right now, people of good faith came together at a negotiating table , and said, “Let’s find a way to live together in peace? ”  No more suicide bombings, no more air raids.  Just set the ground rules for tomorrow and the day after.  I am convinced it can be done– Throughout history, enemies have been able to put aside their differences, and live in peace. International relations are not much more complicated than family relations, and can be managed the same way. 

But does that mean all is forgiven?  I don’t think so.  

I once extended normal, human sympathy to a woman who suffered a terrible loss.  She had made a difficult, but absolutley ethical and moral decision, and was suffering deeply.  I told her I had learned what she had done, that I knew she was suffering, and that I knew she had made the best choice available, and that her action was the highest, most loving course she could have taken under the circumstances handed to her.  She looked at me, and said nothing.  This was pretty much what I expected– this woman hated me, and I knew it.  In fact, she had invented extremely creative ways of expressing her hatred for me– she had mocked my physical looks, my manners of speech, and my pathetic lack of athletic ability.  I didn’t forgive her for any of this stuff when I decided to speak words of sympathy to her in her grief.   I just didn’t let it stop me.  A few months later, she approached me, and told me she couldn’t believe what I had done, how I could have chosen to comfort her in when she was in such agony.  She began to detail all the awful things she had said and done over the many years of our acquaintance, and to explain why she had come to despise me so deeply.  I stopped her. 

 ”Look”, I said.  “Let’s just call that water under the bridge.  I don’t need to understand.  We can just go on from here. ”  And we did.   We did not go on to become great friends.  But we were civil, and coexisted quite nicely without all the drama.  It simply wasn’t necessary to  go back, and re-visit every time she felt I had looked at her the wrong way, or parked in her spot, or whatever I had done to prompt her abusive behavior.  I was just relieved that it stopped.  I never said to her “I forgive you.”    The words were unnecessary.   

But, back to Sunflower.  In the book, Wiesenthal poses the question of whether he should have granted the dying SS man the absolution which he begged.  There’s no easy answer.  (Unless you are an idiot.  It’s easy to say– oh yes you should have done this or that.  But if you really reflect on this situation, no one reply is right or wrong.) 

But Wiesenthal went beyond the concept of forgiveness when he showed such sensitiivity and compassion to the SS man’s mother.  She was able to go to her grave, never knowing that her son, her little boy, whom she had raised, taken to Church, and lovingly nurtured, had destroyed another woman’s family with such unspeakable cruelty.  Wiesenthal didn’t have to forgive anyone– when presented with opportunity to do harm, he comforted. 

This is the key to peace– we do not need to turn our hands from the work of justice, but we need to make the choice to live in peace.  We are not innocent beings, we people.  We have the knowledge of good and evil, and every day, we choose.  Over and over again.  Like the rain drops, beating down. 

Saddam’s Hanging

That night, we were at my father in law’s house in LA.  I saw a streaming headline on the TV that said the hanging would take place, but I was still shocked when I went out to the living room to check on my DH, who had fallen asleep on the couch, and glanced up at the tv screen to see Saddam being fitted with the rope around his neck. 

Shia people danced in the street.  Sunnis rioted.  What will it all mean for Iraq?  For us?  I think that some likely hope that without Saddam, the violence will subside.  Others think the civil war was inevitable, anyway, so why not rid the world of him.  After all, the only reason Bush the first did not remove Saddam from power when he had the chance, was that nobody else on the horizon looked even remotely capable of holding that country together. And in the years since, Saddam was dead clever about murdering anybody who looked as though they could possibly lay claim to leadership, so he could keep it that way.   

 So now, by default, someone else will have to figure out what to do to hold Iraq together.  And the most astute comment I have read on that subject was from a San Diego barber who was being interviewed about troop deployment– there’s going to be another Saddam, or someone worse. 

Madeline Allbright and Bill Clinton knew that Iraq would fall apart into civil war without Saddam Hussein.  He was the devil we knew.  He was bad, but untold chaos was in store without him.  They chose not to go after him militarily, but sought to bring him to heel with the pressure of economic sanctions, which took a terrible toll on Iraq, but which kept the Iraqi military within its own borders.  But they understood very well what would happen without Saddam. 

Now, courtesy of George W., who conveniently ignored everyone who told him Iraq would devolve into chaos without Saddam, we will have the devil we don’t know.  Tony Blair once said about 500,000 people had been murdered or tortured to death by Saddam.  For all the people who suffered because of Saddam, I hope the hanging brings some sense of peace and the ability to move on in peace and dignity.   Saddam’s crimes were of historic proportion, and however chaotic the trial looked to our American eyes (although, with Judge Judy and her ilk, maybe it didn’t seem so odd)  the resulting sentence was predictable but fair.  And we shouldn’t be so shocked that the execution lacked decorum.  This hanging looked like the wild west because these people are living under wild west conditions.  At least they had the trial.   

But now how many more have suffered or died miserably because of Bush’s misadventure?  Has all our own sacrifice served to accomplish nothing more than to compound Saddam’s crimes?   And now, we face a new era of nuclear proliferation among Islamist nations.  We face the proliferation of incredibly nihilistic religious thought.   I know a lot of people who supported this war thought it would result in something good.  But that goal, if it ever was in reach, seems to have slipped from our grasp. Because the devil we don’t know may just actually have what Saddam lacked– real, functioning WMD’s, courtesy of Iran’s “peaceful and legitimate” nuclear program. 

The Bright Side

We have a woman Speaker of the House of Representatives.  I had to laugh– I heard someone describe Nancy Pelosi as an inarticulate speaker.  Fair enough.  So is President Bush.  So she isn’t Ted Kennedy– but she won’t be driving off a bridge with her secretary, either.  And somehow, you get the feeling that Nancy Pelosi, inarticulate though she may be, has more genuine honesty and courage in her little fingertip than Bush, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hastert and Condoleeza Rice all rolled up together.  Remember when she went to Beijing to commemorate the protest at Tienanmen Square?  This lady has some courage, and she has some principles.  I hope and pray she can help cut a new path. 

San Francisco Values

It’s the latest Republican attack dog call– “We don’t want San Francisco values leading the way, etc.!”

Well, no kidding.  I’m sure they don’t.  It’s much easier to be complacent and always convinced you are right, than to engage in the rigorous practice of tolerance.    The solid San Francisco values of respect, tolerance and hospitality are just plain hard work.  It’s much easier to deliver stupid put-downs, than it is to build up common ground.  San Francisco values are not for the weak or lazy-minded.  They take constant work.  I don’t meant to set myself up as a perfect example, because I’m not.  But here are a few of the San Francisco values I have picked up over the last 30 years or so, and hold, oh so dear:

Value Number 1:  Feed and clothe and care for the homeless.  No matter how hard it is.  No matter how many of them.  Even though the work is endless.  Even though people disagree over how best to take care of them.  Keep trying.

Value Number 2:   Respect other people.  Even though they look different.  Even though they strike you as odd.  They are people, they have dignity, and you can learn something from each of them. Respect leads to diversity, and diversity is good. 

Value Number 3:  Speak up for what you believe.  It may seem that no one is listening, but you may do more good than you will ever know.

Value Number 4:  Love is good. 

Value Number 5:  Parks are good.

Value Number 6:  Walking and taking the bus are good ways to get to where you’re going.

Value Number 7:   Whatever happens, if we help each other, we can rebuild better than ever. 

And those are only a few San Francisco values.  Can you think of any more?  Yes, it’s a crazy place.  No, it isn’t perfect.  But there are reasons why everyone wants to be there.