Thoughts On Forgiveness

     Someone important and dear to my family has betrayed us. The weight of their betrayal is deep and reaches far into a community of people. But this is not the focus of my story. It no longer matters what propagated the pain. It is done and it cannot be changed. What I focus on now is my role in this; the act that requires me to step onto the stage. The act of forgiveness.
     Offensive acts are categorized into two parts; those that break a law and those that break hearts. Sometimes an offense will do both and other times it will fit just one or the other category. We have written codes of law that address those offenders who break it. Their crimes, and the immorality that accompanies them, are punished and their debt to society is said to have been paid. But what about the other face of the offense? The face that has lied or betrayed us? The face that may or may not have broken a law, but has certainly broken our hearts? For this, we must look within ourselves and our own moral code to determine how we are to respond.
     As a Christian, I refer to the teachings of my faith to provide guidance through this moral quagmire. But even with this guidance, and even with a generally forgiving heart, it can still be a very hard thing to do. Forgive.
    Exactly what is forgiveness? I believe the foundation of the Christian faith is based on forgiveness. God sacrificed His Son as atonement for our sins. That even while we were still in our sin, Christ died for what was surely our own transgression. To a perfect and just God, our debt was paid and our sins were forgiven. The final result is the restoration of our broken relationship with God and our acceptance into Heaven as pure and guiltless. It is finished, it is complete, there is not one thing more we can or need to do. This is a representation of perfect forgiveness.
     Are we instructed to forgive others the same way that God forgave us? When we pray the Lord's prayer, the fifth petition says, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." or "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." We are petitioning God to help us forgive others in the same way that He has forgiven us. In the Book of Ephesians 4:32, the ultimate example is given, "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God in Christ forgave you." I respond with more questions: But God was perfect, I say! And we are not. How can imperfect humans behave in a perfect, God-like way? Is it okay to use our imperfection as an excuse to agonize and struggle, never reconciling with someone because it makes us uncomfortable? Or, shunning those who have hurt us even though with our mouths we say we have forgiven them? Again, if the final picture of forgiveness is restoration of the relationship, then how should we forgive?
     Dr. Timothy Keller, American Christian apologist, pastor and author, says the following;
  "What is forgiveness, specifically? When someone has wronged you, it means they owe you, they have a debt with you. Forgiveness is to absorb the cost of the debt yourself. You pay the price yourself, and you refuse to exact the price out of the person in any way. Forgiveness is to a) free the person from penalty for a sin by b) paying the price yourself. How did God forgive? We are told that he does not ‘remember’ them. That cannot mean that God literally forgets what has happened–it means he ‘sends away’ the penalty for them. He does not bring the incidents to mind, and does not let them affect the way he deals with us."
     The last sentence seems to reassure in my heart what I know I must do in my actions, "He does not bring the incidents to mind, and does not let them affect the way he deals with us." My problem is, what I should do and what I am able to do are very different. A friend likened this struggle to the swelling of a wound that cannot heal until the swelling goes down. Sometimes we need to let the hurt subside before we are able to forgive. I suspect 'grace' plays an important role here. God extends grace to us because he knows we are incapable of perfection. He also uses our inner struggle to teach us other important lessons about ourselves and perhaps see His divine nature more clearly.
      One thing I know for sure; this struggle makes me see how imperfect I am. It also makes me realize, again, what God has done for us. He forgave a people mired in sin, who did not not deserve nor earn His forgiveness. He forgave us instantly and forevermore and he continues to do so. He embraces us, smothers our faces with kisses and welcomes us home. I want to learn how to forgive like that.
     I imagine myself sitting on the edge of a precipice, deciding whether to make this leap off the edge. My reasoning is telling me to do it, jump, forgive! But my human frailty and imperfections hold me back and make me fearful. I am afraid to forgive like that. I would rather forgive with strings attached (OK, hooks and harnesses!). The funny thing is, I know there will be a huge rush of adrenalin if I jump. It will be so worth it! In the meantime, I sit on the edge and agonize. I'm working on it and God is with me as I wait, whispering encouragement in my ear.

The Little Porch

     
    My mom, who is ninety, still lives in the house she and my dad built in 1952. Constructed as a tiny two-bedroom, post-war ranch, it hasn't been altered much in all these years. My parents both grew up in the city and a home in the country was my dad's dream. They bought a small lot in a corn field just across the Hudson River from Albany, NY. and their dream became a reality via a G.I. loan. Within a few years, two of my mother's sisters and their families also left the city and built three more houses in that field. Thus began our little neighborhood.
     One of the first additions my dad made to their tiny home was a porch off the back door of the kitchen. He built it himself and it came to be my favorite room of the house. To this day, I can see, smell and feel it as clearly as though I am there.
     My dad modeled the porch after the boxed in little porches seen on the backs of most city houses. It had chest high windows all around with one hinged window that could swing open to access a clothesline. Hanging next to this window was a heavy canvas bag filled with clothespins. The bag was tube- shaped with a handle and meant to be a feed bag for horses. Who knows where my father obtained such a thing, but he was thrifty and this made a sturdy clothespin bag. The door exiting the porch had a wooden milk box built into the corner next to it. The box was insulated with a lining of lead or zinc. It had a removable lid where we could lift out the milk bottles that the milkman delivered through a trap door on the outside wall. My sister and I liked to play with the milk box, stowing secret things in there to be retrieved later via the trap door.
     Dad also built a big wooden step from the kitchen door down onto the porch. The step could be tipped away from the doorsill and the empty space beneath it made a good storage place for tools. He kept a hammer or two there, screwdrivers, an awl and other odds and ends. Any time we neighborhood kids got to building something like forts or houses for stray dogs, we knew where to find a hammer. Dad would have sworn a fit if his tools went missing, so we were always careful to bring them back. This step was also the place where we tied on our sneakers in the summer or pulled on our boots in the winter. Dad studded the walls with nails so we could hang all our shoes within easy reach from the step. We made tying laces fly when we were in a hurry to get out to play, propelling ourselves off the step and out the door. Sometimes, the step was my destination and I went no farther. It was a good place to sit and mope when no one could come out to play or if life inside the house was too close for comfort. By stopping at the step, I wasn't committed to being either in or out. Either direction was a possibility and I didn't feel hemmed in to make a decision. It also served as an excellent spot for planning my next adventure. Since it was secluded from view, I could think in solitude. Mom might be right there, busying herself in the kitchen, but if I was down on the step, she wouldn't even know I was there.
     The kitchen was my mother. The screen door on the porch separated the outside world from our world, via the holy of holies, our kitchen. It was difficult to pass through the door without being noticed by my mother. Like all screen doors, creaking hinges gave us away. I often stood at this door to beg snacks from my mother for me and everyone else I happened to be playing with. Standing on the step, hanging onto the screen door, I would call inside, "Mom! Can I have a cookie?!" She would yell back, "How many?" and I might answer, "Eight!" She complained about us eating her out of house and home, but she always handed them out to us. The screen had a permanent bulge at the bottom where I would press my nose against it while I yelled in to my mom. I can still smell the metallic screening. We were forbidden to enter the house with shoes on, and Lord knew I wasn't going to take them off just to ask for a cookie, so I would push my nose onto that screen, feeling it give a little bump as the screen snapped into its bumped position. In the winter, the screen frame was exchanged with a glass, paned frame which created an entirely different door altogether.
     One summer we got our hands on a tape recorder. Our eight-year-old imaginations didn't seem to stray far when it came to recording ourselves. Burps, goofy noises and singing the pop AM radio songs along with our transistor radios made up our repertoire. One time, we sneaked up to the screen door, huddled together on the wooden step, and tried to record my mother singing. She had a beautiful voice and she would sing while she did her housework. We also begged her to laugh like the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz. I bragged to the other kids that my mother could imitate the witch's laugh and all the kids wanted to hear it. To our delight, she screamed the witch's cackling laugh, imitating it perfectly and maybe even going a little overboard. After being a good sport and hamming it up, she turned serious again and told us to shoo. We got it on tape.
     We always used the back porch for coming and going to play. The front door was reserved for company, salesmen, and heading off to church and school . For everything else, we used the back door. The porch was a decompression chamber of sorts, dividing outside from in. When we came home from play, we stopped on the porch, kicked off our shoes, brushed off dirt or snow, perhaps leaned our skates against the wall and briefly hovered between two worlds.
     The most dramatic porch event occurred one one February day when I was eleven. School was out for Winter Recess and all us kids were out sledding about half a mile from my house. The boys started throwing rocks for fun as the girls slid downhill. We were moving targets and they were...well, boys. Suddenly, I was struck in the eye with one of their rocks. I fell to my knees and sensed immediately that it was bad. Temporarily blinded, numb with pain, and panicked by the warm blood running down onto my new scarf, the kids all hustled me home. On that long walk, while I marveled at the colorful stars I was seeing, we fabricated a story so that no one would get the blame for blinding me. It's crazy how kids stick together no matter the consequences. It was my own cousin who injured me, but I would never be a tattletale. The unspoken rules of kidhood demanded as much. We entered the porch en masse where I stood on the step at the back door with all the other kids behind me. They were eager to witness this drama unfold. I knocked on my own door and yelled in to my mother, "Mom!" She and my aunt from up the street were visiting at the kitchen table that afternoon and I heard her get up and open the door for me. I stood there before her in pitiful condition, cheek split open, heaps of blood, blinded in one eye. I dared not cry for fear of what further injury my tears might cause. Who knew, maybe my eyeball might fall out. My aunt ran up behind my mother, tip of her nose red from her glass of wine. "Oh my gawd! Lee Lee, what did you do?!", she yelled. (Why was it always my fault?)  I kept thinking, don't cry, don't cry, your eyeball might fall out. I can still see their frantic movements, hear their exclamations, see the other kids sent away and my aunt quickly exiting for her home up the street. I came very close to losing the sight in my eye that year. I was brought to our dear Dr. Worth who referred us to an eye specialist the very next morning. I suffered days of severe headaches, light sensitivity, and I had quite the shiner. I missed the rest of winter break although I tried to ice skate with an eye patch, but I really didn't feel well and it was no fun. I was also scared into telling the truth about what happened that day. I later apologized to my cousin and told him they made me tell. And, I forever have a scar sewed into this tapestry of life called my face.
      The porch ushered us in and out through all the seasons, treating us to wonderful aromas depending on the time of year. In the summer, it smelled of chlorine and damp beach towels from the swimming pool. In late summer it held bushels of tomatoes and zucchini passing from garden to kitchen. I would grab a tomato as I ran out to play on a late summer's evening, eating it as I rushed back out to the kickball game or freeze tag. In the fall, leaf rakes lined the wall and the porch smelled of sweet apples and pears. The sun warmed the little room as the afternoons wore on, stealing away the autumn chill by the time we ran out after school. Come winter, the porch was littered with boots and sleds. Ice skates replaced the flip flops' place on the nails. The little porch became an ice box in the frigid winter of upstate New York. Winter's clean, sharp smell stung the inside of my nose and cleared my head when I went out to play. Through all the seasons, it smelled of my mother's good cooking coming from just the other side of the door. It greeted us as we ran up those steps, appetites huge from a day of vigorous outdoor play.
     Around 1967, my dad built a larger porch onto the back of the house. The two porches were connected with a door and the old, original porch became known as "the little porch." The new, bigger porch served as our summer living room, complete with dining area, sofa, chairs and TV while the little porch reminded utilitarian. So much time has passed and my dad is now gone. The door to the big porch is always closed as it sits in a state of encapsulated time, gathering dust. My little porch still appears the same, but no one runs in and out of it any more. It's easier for my mom to keep her garbage can there so she won't have to walk down the back steps. The rope on the clothesline has rotted, the milk box is nailed shut and I must drive six hundred miles to sit on the back step. But you can bet that every time I'm there, I spend a few minutes sitting on that step and remembering what a fantastic childhood we had together. And when the day comes that the house must be sold, I'm taking the screen door.