Forgiveness and Letting Go
Comments by
Dale Golis and The Rev. Susan Manker-Seale
October 9, 2005
Dale’s Comments:
With Rev. Susan’s help I have come to you today with a personal struggle of many decades and maybe shared by some of you. How do I forgive those who have done something that borders on, or is, evil, as I define it, as I understand it, as I live with it? I understand enough psychology to know that to harbor a feeling of hatred is destructive to me. After our Worship Service on Sept. 11, War is Not the Answer, I thought more about this issue of forgiveness and could not resolve how to understand my relationship to the many innocent citizens of Iraq who have suffered cruelly from the policies of our government recently and in decades past. Think globally and act locally and I try to do that here in Tucson as do many of you. But there is still this feeling of not having resolved anything. These matters are so huge and so complex it is hard to wrap your mind and heart around all the ramifications.
The book club to which I belong read “The Sunflower” by Simon Wiesenthal. You may recall that Mr. Wiesenthal died recently at the age of ninety-six after a lifetime of identifying Nazis war criminals. I would like to read to you from the back cover of this book:
While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to and obtain absolution from a Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing. But even years after the war had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing? What would you have done in his place?
In this book…fifty-three distinguished men and women respond to Wiesenthal’s questions. They are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocide in Bosnia, Cambodia, China, and Tibet. Their responses, as varied as their experiences of the world, remind us that Wiesenthal’s questions are not limited to events of the past. Often surprising and always thought provoking, The Sunflower, will challenge you to define your beliefs about justice, compassion, and human responsibility.
This is a major issue. How can Simon possibly be expected to forgive in this circumstance? And I can name many other current events in our world where it seems inconceivable to grant forgiveness for atrocities. But we know there have been extraordinary movements in Africa and Australia toward reconciliation between oppressed peoples and those responsible for their condition.. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Forgiveness is not just an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude.” ( Repeat). I would like to adopt that attitude and incorporate it into my daily life, to break the chains of hatred, to move from the need for vengeance and retribution toward reconciliation and peace.
If all those learned persons making comments in Mr. Wiesenthal’s book are having difficulty with this issue, no wonder I am struggling. As I mentioned earlier, hanging onto hate is self-destructive as it does not ameliorate the agony of anger. In this regard my daughter has told me that when I spend too much time reading websites with their long litany of injustices as perceived by any of us who tend toward a progressive or liberal line of thought, my family begins to back away, not because they disagree, but they are tired of my ranting. They avoid certain subjects as the content tends to fire me up, or they find excuses to change the subject, or leave the premises on errands. In this case my anger becomes like an addiction, which means that it holds more value to me than my family. I must learn to deal with my tendency to clutch the anger and learn to view the situation in a more universal light.
I’d like to quote from a passage by the Dalai Lama in this same book:
Labeling the Chinese as our enemies, we could self-righteously condemn them for their brutality and dismiss them as unworthy of further thought or consideration….
Here I would like to relate a very interesting incident. A few years back, a Tibetan monk who had served about eighteen years in a Chinese prison in Tibet came to see me after his escape to India. I knew him from my days in Tibet and remember last seeing him in 1959. During the course of that meeting I had asked him what he felt was the biggest threat or danger while he was in prison. I was amazed by his answer. It was extraordinary and inspiring. I was expecting him to say something else; instead he said that what he most feared was losing his compassion for the Chinese.
Dr. King might agree, that’s not an occasional act, but a permanent attitude!
Susan’s Comments:
When I was in Seminary, I was asked by fellow students one day whether I believed in evil. I have been working on that question ever since. What keeps me from saying “no” is the very thing Dale has been talking about—how can evil not exist when we witness such atrocities as the holocaust and genocide and torture? What exactly is the nature of evil? What definition explains such horrible acts on the part of one person to another, one society to another, one faith to another?
Not only do we hurt each other and mean to, but we also hurt each other without meaning to. Life is full of human actions which cause pain to others, and we cannot escape it. We cannot control the actions of others, except by agreeing on rules and laws and trying to enforce them, but we can try to control our own actions by keeping aware of how our words and deeds affect others. And by caring. But murder, genocide and torture aside, we are still complicit in actions by our governments and organizations, even if only through the apathetic turning away from owning our responsibility, or even seeing it.
Religions have a name for this: sin. We Unitarian Universalists don’t like that word much, since it was used to foist unnecessary guilt upon people in past centuries and to imply that children could be born sinful. So we can argue whether it is a useful concept, or rename acts of apathy and disrespect and lack of compassion as not “sin,” but—“sad”? “Wrong”? “Bad”? Whatever you call it, we all engage in it, and we all need to stop regularly and assess how we’re doing in living the compassionate, respectful, responsible life.
Religions not only recognize that we make mistakes or sin on a regular basis; they also have created rituals for helping us let go of those, cleanse ourselves and forgive ourselves and others. This is considered necessary for reuniting, or returning, to god. Translate god into something meaningful for you.
This month of October, 2005, two of the major religions of the world have their most important rituals of forgiveness happening together for the first time in more than two decades. Rosh Hashanah began last Tuesday, and is the start of the Jewish New Year and their High Holy Days within their sacred lunar month of Tishrei. October also sees the beginning of the sacred Muslim lunar month of Ramadan.
Rosh Hashanah recognizes that we have turned away from god in many ways, and it is each person’s responsibility to examine their lives and ask forgiveness from friends and neighbors for the ways each of us has hurt each other. The ten days following Rosh Hashanah are called the “Ten Days of Repentance,” during which each person does teshuvah, or returning, turning back to god. One of the traditions for letting go of sins is called tashlich, wherein people go to a body of flowing water and shake their sleeves or prayer shawls of the crumbs that have collected there, or just toss breadcrumbs in, symbolizing their sins which are then carried away by the stream. I found a funny website where one person suggested that people graduate from using “old bread” to using breads with symbolism. For example, if one had exotic sins, one should use French bread; for complex sins, multi-grain; for twisted sins, pretzels; for tasteless sins, rice cakes; for sins of indecision, waffles; and so on. He listed forty-one kinds of sins with their associated breads! (www.gluckman.com/harry/tashlich.htm) You can see that engaging in such important rites as returning to god can be done with humor.
The High Holy Days end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. A colleague pointed out once that if you dissect the word “atonement,” it separates into three words: at-one-ment. If you have done your turning well, you will be at one with god. On Yom Kippur, Jews fast for about twenty-five hours and reflect on their sins, repent, and seek forgiveness from God.
Fasting is the main ritual of the Muslim month of Ramadan, too. “Sawm,” or fasting during Ramadan, is one of the five Pillars of Islam. The first pillar is the shahada, the testimony that “there is no god but God and Muhammad is the Prophet of God.” That’s the formal act by which a person becomes a Muslim. The second pillar is the salat, or the daily ritual prayer, usually made five times a day. The third pillar is zakat, or the making of gifts out of one’s income for specific purposes such as the poor, needy, debtors, to free slaves or for wayfarers. The fourth pillar is sawm, or fasting once a year in the month of Ramadan. The fifth pillar is the hajj, or the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime. (A History of the Arab Peoples, Houran, p. 149)
Ramadan is the month in which the Qur’an was first revealed to Muhammad. Since Muslims use a lunar calendar, Ramadan moves around the year, losing two weeks each time, so eventually, it is celebrated throughout every season. During Ramadan, which began last week, all Muslims over the age of ten are required to abstain from eating, drinking, and sexual contact from daybreak to nightfall, with exceptions for the weak and ill. It is done as a solemn act of repentance for sins and self-denial for God. At night, there are common meals and visits with friends. The month begins with the Laila Al-Bar’h, or “Night of Forgiveness,” when arguments are forgotten or set aside and hurts are healed. Ramadan ends with the Eid Al-Fitr, or the feast of the “Breaking of the Fast’ with the giving of presents and parties. (The History of Religion, Farrington, p. 140)
Consider this: Right now, Jews and Muslims are practicing acts of forgiveness and repentance, attempting to turn back to God! I was sent an email from faithfulamerica.org wherein the director of the Shalom Center, Rabbi Waskow, tells about The October project. The National Council of Churches, the Islamic Society of North America, Pax Christi, and other groups are urging that religious communities set aside October 13 for fasting from sunrise to sunset. October 13 is Yom Kippur as well as one of the fast days of Ramadan. Rabbi Waskow also pointed out that in addition to this great confluence of the two traditions, October 4 is also the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, who “was one of the few Christians of his day who opposed the Crusades, who learned in a serious way from Muslim teachers, and who was deeply dedicated to kinship with the earth and all living creatures.” (“God’s October Surprise,” www.faithfulamerica.org)
If you fast on October 13, they urge you to dedicate it to support public multireligious action to “Seek Peace, Feed the Poor, Heal the Earth.” They also have suggestions for interfaith activities. We will be able to do this next year and in 2007 as well. Maybe such rituals of repentance and forgiveness will help heal the fighting going on in the world. Maybe such rituals will help each of us turn back toward living lives of compassion, respect and responsibility.
During the meditation following the offertory, I invite you to consider the ways you have turned away from god or living a healthful life.
Ritual of Letting Go:
On the piece of paper in your hands, write a word or sentence or picture of something you need to let go of or forgive in your life. After the service, you may take it outside and burn it in the fire out there, or if water is your element, flush it down the toilet at home, not here – we’re on septic – or take some crumbs and perform tashlich by tossing them into a flowing stream—good luck finding one.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson