Is there any other time of year that brings long lingering family grievances into sharper focus? The pressure that builds around what should be a joyous time goes far beyond the stress of buying presents, attending too many parties and trying to get the house in order for hosting a few in return. For too many, getting together with family ranks as the biggest stressor.
It’s not just the quirks of Dylan Thomas’s aunts and uncles. No, it’s the unresolved hurts and inevitable new ones that cut us to the quick, that fill us with dread before and anger after.
The thing is, rarely can the issues be addressed in a constructive manner. The timing is never right over the holidays—is it ever?—and even if a sweet spot materializes, are we ever in the right frame of mind? Or is the other person?
And in the end, is it ever really worth it to hold on to most of these grievances?
No.
“If you stay in that anger for any length of time, it will become like a prison, a place that’s very difficult to leave.” On the contrary, “When we choose to forgive, we can make the choice even though sometimes it’s incredibly difficult and sometimes it will take a while to get to the path of forgiveness.”
Those are not abstract ideals. Those are the words of Dale Lang.
On April 28, 1999, Jason Lang, 17, was killed in a Columbine-style shooting by a 14-year-old boy at W.R. Myers High School in Taber, Alta. The event shook the country, because we thought such events didn’t happen here.
But out of that event came something astonishing and wonderful.
Jason’s parents, Dale and Diane, openly prayed for the family and the boy who shot their son and forgave him.
“You don’t have to live with the anger,” said Dale. “We prayed and we forgave the boy. That was very healing for our family.”
Anne Lamott, an American Presbyterian, echoes those thoughts. She writes: “Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. … If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare …”
Those are the very nightmares that keep us awake at night when we endlessly replay a hurt, real or perceived.
One way of looking at scripture is as a history of a faith community moving from a sense of retributive to restorative justice in relation to God and humanity.
In almost every early religion, gods angered by humans are the causes of natural catastrophes. But the story of Noah and the flood is an insight that God cannot be appeased by anything humans do and that God loves and cares deeply for creation and humanity.
Jewish faith develops this theme of intimacy, from the immanence of God in the Ark to the deeply personal images in Hosea of God not punishing but calling his people who have strayed back into relationship.
This leads to the Christian understanding of God becoming intimately one with us in Jesus and remaining with us in perpetual immanence of the Holy Spirit.
In all these efforts, God is constantly forgiving and moving to restore the relationship. And it is therefore a restoration that begins with the wronged (God) reaching out to humans (who perpetrated the wrong).
How different that is from so much in the world. And yet how restorative that would be if we could see forgiveness as the greatest gift we have to offer in broken relationships.
May your Christmas be filled with joy and love and forgiveness.
And may your New Year be filled with the grace of healing.
