Forgive and forget

Last year, an acquaintance stopped believing in God. I was curious, not because I thought he was going to hell; in my opinion there is no hell, literally speaking. I was just intellectually curious about how someone consciously decided to join a monotheistic religion and then, a few months later, decided that there is no God.  I didn’t know him very well and I thought, “Hey, what better way to get to know someone than to ask him a direct question about something very meaningful.”

He told me there were many reasons for his transformation but number one on the list of disbelief was that there was no proof that God exists and that, in fact, he could come up with all kinds of reasons for God not to exist. That argument was nothing new to me. But in my life I could never get past agnosticism. Atheism–the fervent belief that there is no God–was a whole other ballgame.

(You can find some of my basic arguments about God here and here, but that’s not what this post is about.)

No, I want to write about what happened next. This same acquaintance posted on The Facebook a quote from Sigmund Freud. It was a vague notion about how believers in God suffer from a mass delusion. (At least that’s how I took it.) And I thought such a post was insulting, and why would he want to insult others like that. So I asked him if I had deduced the meaning of the quote correctly. And if so, why would he post such an insulting thing. I may have also said something derogatory about Dr. Freud.

Well holy Toledo. You’d have thought I punched this guy’s mother in the stomach. He was so aghast that I would question his motives and his right to post whatever he wanted. I had, he said, ruined the start of his vacation. He was in tears. He was hurt.

I, meanwhile, was shocked. At first, I thought, “What a typical delicate flower of the younger generation this fellow must be.” But I apologized profusely because I never meant to hurt him. I was intellectually curious–he was a fervent believer one minute and then an atheist trotting out typical atheist talking points the next. I just wanted to find out what gives. But apparently “friends” on facebook is not a literal term.

My apology was long and sincere. But he never got back to me. Never accepted my apology, which, I should repeat, was quite heartfelt. The last thing I wanted to do was bring someone to tears.

But a few days later, again on The Facebook–which I am pretty much learning to loath–this person posted a status update: “I can forgive but I can never forget.”

Now, I was offended. But after a brief moment of teeth gnashing, his post got me thinking. What do people really mean when they say they can forgive but can’t forget?

First, of course we shouldn’t completely forget. How could we learn and grow if we forget the circumstances of life lessons? But is that really how people mean it when they say, “I can forgive but I can’t forget.” I don’t think so.

It seems like they can forgive someone intellectually because that’s what we’re supposed to do, but deep down they won’t forget and so they won’t really forgive.

Inherent in true forgiveness, and I’m no expert, is the very notion that there is a place for forgetfulness. For instance, If a person really pisses me off and they offer their sincerest apologies, then shouldn’t I put that apology and the spirit in which it was offered first and foremost in my mind? The very fact that we actually make a point of not forgetting–I can forgive, sure. BUT I cannot forget–means that we really haven’t forgiven anything. We are giving equal weight to someone’s  apology and their fault. That can’t be what true forgiveness is all about.

No. To me, we should actually forget the offense as best we can. We should, in a phrase, turn the other cheek and look the other way. Of course, the most spiritual of people would not even care if the offending person was sorry. “Forgive them father; they know not what they do.” But I’m not even talking about that. I’m talking about a person who actually apologizes. To say to such a person, “I can forgive but not forget,” is far from appropriate. It creates more disunity. It turns the true meaning of forgiveness into a vapid exercise, devoid of meaning, that serves no real purpose save to the consciousness of the person who utters it.

A great Middle Eastern seer once said, and I paraphrase, “If a man possesses ten good character traits and one bad quality, focus on the ten good ones. And if he has ten bad qualities and just one good one, concentrate on the good one.” This is how good trumps evil; how positive energy trumps negative emotions.

Admittedly, I’m bad at this. I’m like an egotistical singer who exalts the greatness of a saint. Or like a selfish laggard who supports a cause greater than himself. I sometimes feel like I’m the opposite of such loftiness. Yet, I’m attracted to it.

And maybe that’s why the statement “I can forgive but I can’t forget,” seems like rubbish to me. Because I think it, even if I don’t utter it. I forgive but maybe I don’t forget well enough. Maybe this post is actually an example of what I detest the most. Maybe I’m trying to exercise my demons by writing this. Who knows. (Who am I–Freud? Get off my back!)

So, I will forget this person’s delicateness. I will forget that he will not forget. And should our paths cross again, I will only see his true nature as an inquisitive soul. And I’ll wish him well.

But I won’t forgive him. Because there’s nothing to forgive.