Resurrection After Rape Community Group
Discussion, question-and-answer, general social support, and journal processing for progress-oriented rape survivors. No crisis, no damaging or triggering conflicts--this is for individuals who want to contribute to collective, cooperative action toward the goal of making actual PROGRESS through rape trauma. Much of this work is based on the book "Resurrection After...
From whatever perspective you'd like--religious, moral, philosophical, psychological, whatever. But what does "forgiveness" mean, and what are the benefits and risks of it?
The dishonour..
I havent forgiven my abusers. I feel like I have because I can say i wish no harm 99% of time. However...I don't forgive myself.
So I was wondering do we think forgiving ourselves and forgiving them are mutually exclusive? By this I mean at the moment it is easy for me to say I wish no harm unto them because at the moment I am the one in the wrong. Forgiveness of them is no battle of wills.
If I forgive myself I imagine I have a long journey through the kind of hate I pushed onto myself. Then the forgiveness challenge begins.
Would forgiving dishonour me? I don't believe in an eye for an eye..never have done. But I imagine feeling like there should be something of equal consequence. Why should I forgive?
But what if the forgiveness of me and the forgiveness of them are two different forms of forgiveness? Same word, different action.
Forgiving myself is making myself blameless and about pushing blame and shame onto the correct persons. Forgiving them has nothing to do with forgiving their actions and making them blameless. I've been balancing them on the same scales..forgive me or forgive them. But they arent the same are they? I CAN forgive both and not dishonour my rape, my trauma. If I forgive both of us I have still been raped...my soul murder still happened..im just choosing not to murder another soul? Or for that matter keep stabbing my own.
Benefits: would be, that if I could get a grip on forgivness, I would be better...risk, my religous up bringing tells me I am to forgive, and that if I don't I am not following God's plan.
How so? I don't see one-sided forgiveness (pardon without repentance) in the Bible, nor in two of the religions that are based most heavily on it, Judaism and Christianity. And as for two sided forgiveness as the end product of a process of repentance - most of us never even have the opportunity to exercise that sort of forgiveness. Which of us survivors ever get a rapist coming up to us and saying "I realize now what a horrible thing I did to you and I can never make it up to you, but I no longer rape and I am doing the best to stop others as well. I have no right to your forgiveness - I cannot undo what I have done - but I ask it because I must also make amends to you".
And now I just had an ah-ha. I've been wondering what connection two-sided forgiveness has with the one-sided act I did on Yom Kippur 15 years ago where I "forgave" the sin against me. I certainly wasn't responding to the rapist's repentance. Doesn't that make it one-sided? Am I wrong to call it forgiveness?
No.
My ah-ha is this: what I did on Yom Kippur was a part of the process of forgiveness, but not the whole thing. What I did on Yom Kippur can't be because forgiveness is a multi-part process.
There IS a component of forgiveness that is letting go and allowing ourselves to make good out of evil, to be a survivor.
By the time a person genuinely wants, needs, and has done the work to justify two-sided forgiveness (forgiveness after repetantence), the only reason left not to forgive is my own anger and bitterness at the hurt caused me. Neither I nor the rapist can go back in time because what is done is done. This final step isn't something the rapist can do because the rapist has already done everything possible for him to do. On the other hand, as long as the rape is distorting my life in negative ways, I can't really pardon either. Yet the rapist can't fix this distortion either because the rapist must not and should not determine who I am. Turning evil into good is a VERY personal process - it has to be a reclaiming of myself from the rapist.
So here's my take. Forgiveness as a process has three necessary components:
a) repentence/repair of the future - the rapists job
b) letting go and working to make good grow out of the damage that the rapist could not fix even with perfect repentence - in short being a survivor - our job
c) pardon - ONLY if (a) and (b) happen can we pardon the rapist.
These three steps are needed even when we are angry at God. I believe that horrible things happen because God has this ridiculous love affair with free will. But lets face it. This is God's choice. There are alternate universes that God could have created. I think "if you make a mess clean it up" applies to God as well as people. But so does this free will thing. So when it comes to forgiving God.
a) God has to redeem the evil caused by free will. God has to insure that if rape changes us forever we will have everything we need to make sure that that change is a good life-giving change and not one for destruction
b) Since free-will is the name of the game, God can't just "poof" make it all better. Instead we have to choose and participate in this redemption as a partner with God (or if you prefer our deepest selves, Goddess, life force, the universe, higher power)
c) Only if both (a) and (b) happen, can we pardon God.
It is easy to believe that these three steps have to always happen in order, but they don't - my survivorship and the rapists repentence can happen entirely independently of each other. Only the last of the three, pardon, has a fixed order after both survivorship and repentence. In the pressure cooker of Yom Kippur I realized that. (Yom Kippur is the emotional equivalent of Good Friday and Easter all wrapped up in one very intense day of prayer.)
I see the independence of these two steps: my survivorship and the rapists repentance as an existential fact. We come to realize this in different ways though. For me, the following line of thinking and belief help me see this:
a) Every sin is really a sin against 3: the victim, society and God.
b) Society isn't going to forgive just because I have started on a path of survivorship. Society is wounded because the rapist chose to break a social rule and a society where people break rules is less secure. That rule is still broken even if someone finds a way to repair the damage.
c) God isn't going to forgive just because I have started on a path of survivorship. God's compassion will not allow God to just give the rapist a pass because God is fully identified with all of God's creation and grieves with us. God's will is wounded because that person has chosen against God's plan for the world and God's compassion for God's creation. My survivorship doesn't change the choice made by the rapist or release him from the need to repent.
Your response made me cry for two reasons. I could feel your pain at that moment of screaming for help. And then again when I started to think about how I view God. Since I believe that God is like an incapitated parent..able to see and hear all but unable to do much at all just let His presence be known to us in the hope we will gain strength from that.
So I imagined what it much be like to hear one of your children screaming out in such a way. And I flooded. I never really had a crisis of God in this way because before I started rape recovery I never questioned what I believed. God was something I sort of believed in but secretly. When I was reading the RAR pdf I actually totally skipped the spirituality section. I didn't look at it until I began yearning for a spiritual connection and began looking into what I believed about the world.
Sometimes I am angry and frustrated at God for making us all vulnerable to attack. But seeing God as a human entity allows me to forgive. Im not sure I believe god=good and satan=bad that belief would make me question God to the hilt..why would someone so pure and inherently good allow such pain in the world? I believe God has good intentions.
What is God's plan?
I don't believe God would expect us to do anything he couldn't manage himself. In my opinion I dont think God would want us to forgive unless we felt we needed to. But even if we felt we needed to, not to rush into it. God just wants us to be free...and if we are trapped by our traumas then he would want us to find a way to free ourselves. God wouldn't think any less of us for not forgiving. A crime has been committed against our souls, if any one has a right to not forgive it would be us.
From a theological perspective, that is if you were to talk with most pastors, there are many scriptures in the New Testament that implicitly and explicitly command a one-sided pardon. Let me make myself clear in that I do not endorse this perspective, but Elisheva asked what others think about the Christian message on forgiveness so I offer a popular perspective that is found in most Christian literature. The following is what most pastors would say on the matter of forgiveness.
In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus responds by quoting the Shema (Deut 6:4-5) along with a commandment from Leviticus 19:18 to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus adds that these two love commands are the sum of all the Law and the Prophets (Matt 22:40). This two-fold commandment to love is the hermeneutical key to understanding forgiveness.
Jesus modified the second aspect of the command to love so that the command might have an objectively known and superior referent: Himself. He commanded his followers to "love one another just as I have loved you" (Jn 13:34). To love others as self was the expectation under the old covenant; however, the new covenant of Christ ushered in the eternal standard of loving others just as he has loved. Most Christian churches preach that this Christ-like love reveals itself in action - helping when it is not convenient, devoting energy to other's welfare rather than our own, absorbing hurts from others withough complaining or fighting back.
This two-fold commandment to love includes loving our enemies (Matt 5:43-48). According to church teachings, we must love even in the face of injustice or injury. The essence of enemy love provides a definitive connection with human forgiveness and serves as a key component in the development of a Christian perspective of forgiveness.
Along these lines of sacrificial love, even love of our enemies, Christians are commanded to forgive (Matt 6:14-15, 18:35; Eph 4:32). The church teaches that having received forgiveness, we will pass it on to others. Those who are unwilling to forgive have not become one with Christ, who was willing to forgive even those who crucified him (Lk 23:34). Bottom line, according to most Christian leaders, the key to forgiving others is remembering how much God has forgiven you (Col 3:12-15).
The connection between divine love and forgiveness appears throughout redemptive history. The most dramatic and incomparable climax of love and forgiveness is manifested in the cross of Christ. God demonstrated merciful love toward the enemies of God (Jh 3;16; Rom 5:8), forgiving them by the blood shed through the atoning death of Christ (Eph 1:7). Paul teaches that followers of Christ should put on love and forgiveness just like Christ has loved and forgiven them (Eph 4:32-5:2; Col 3:12-15). In Luke 7, Jesus makes a direct connection between love and forgiveness as He tells the parable of the two debtors. Jesus makes the point that the one who has been forgiven much cannot help but love much.
In the majority of passages where human forgiveness is juxtaposed with love, the Greek verb charizomai is utilized for the concept of forgiveness (2 Cor 2:7-11; Col 3:12-15; eph 4:32; Lk 7:41-43). Charizomai conveys the essence of freely bestowing grace or favor. Given the meaning for charizomai, forgiveness can be understood to resemble divine love: grace freely given for ultimately redemptive purposes so that those involved might love God more deeply.
This leads to the widely accepted (in Christian communities) definition of human forgiveness based on the love of God: Forgiveness is a work of God's love in the human soul that compels one to give oneself for another, despite being sinned against, so that the other might love God more deeply.
Forgiveness is rooted in the command to love others as self. Thus, when one is sinned against, God's command to love still applies and so is the command to love and forgive our enemies. Forgiveness fulfills God's command to love.
Now, that's the theological response, not that I necessarily endorse it. Furthermore, popular wisdom - what most people assume - seems to tell us that forgiveness is a good thing, something that a person ought to be able to do do and that doing it will be good for them. What theology and popular wisdom seem to ignore is the powerful dynamic of shame and its influence on forgiveness. The shame that a Survivor experiences as a result of the abuse and injustices they suffered has a considerable impact on the forgiveness process, yet it is rarely considered in theological arguments. Furthermore, the shame experienced by Survivors results not only from the personal injury experienced, but also from the shame they incorporated from what they understood their religious tradition to be saying to them. One striking example of this comes from William Barclay's commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (studied by most major Protestant denominations):
In his discussion of the Lord's Prayer, he states, "Jesus says in the plainest possible language that if we forgive others, God will forgive us; but if we refuse to forgive others, God will refuse to forgive us... No one is fit to pray the Lord's prayer so long as the unforgiving spirit holds sway within his heart."
Christian Survivors are caught both in the shame of what has happened to them and confirmed in it by what they understand their religious tradition to be telling them they must do. It is no wonder that forgiveness creates such angst in Survivors who desire to do what God asks of them. I believe making God's forgiveness of us conditional on our forgiveness of others, is based on conclusions based on sloppy exegesis. The phrase "forgiving as we are forgiven" appears in the context of a prayer describing the believer's relationship to a God who is understood as a loving and forgiving parent.
The message about human forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer is not found by extracting from its context the one petition in the prayer that seems to tell us what to do, but in seeing that petition, like the others, as essentially an affirmation of God's relationship to us and a call for our continued relationship with each other. The Lord's Prayer in its entirely can be described as a continual discovery and rediscovery of grace. We do not have to forgive, but sometimes we discover the capacity to forgive in ourselves. Our forgiveness is not a condition of God's forgiveness, but something enabled by God's relationship to our human lives.
Human forgiveness, understood in this way, tatkes tremendous pressure off the Survivor to forgive within any given time constraints. Furthermore, it reassures the survivor that forgiveness can be defined differently for each individual and his or her unique circumstances. Forgiveness may simply be acknowledging the injustice or it may be a verbal proclamation to forgive based on some form of redemptive love or it may be an actual pardon based on conditions of the offender's remorse, restitution, and regeneration. However, the Survivor chooses to forgive, if she chooses to forgive at all. This is all part of the process to forgive.
Thus, human forgiveness is not necessarily a behavior, something done or not done, but a process discovered retrospectively after it has already begun to take place within the context of renewed relationships (God, family, friends... not speaking about renewing a relationship with the perp). Forgiveness is most likely to be discovered not in trying to forgive or in being instructed about the process of forgiveness, but in the larger process of overcoming one's hurt and rediscovering who one is beyond the experience of injury and brokenness. The person who stays focused upon whether or not he or she can forgive is not likely to to so.
Unfortunately, this is not what most Christian churches preach. They continue to preach the message about one-sided pardon. Individuals who already must struggle with the feelings of self-blame caused by the abuse should not have to take on the further blame of not being able to forgive. Forgiveness is not a commodity that can be handed out. Survivors need to be reassured of this in their Christian communities. Survivors also need to hear more often that forgiveness is not always necessary to heal. Many survivors are able to gradually "let go" of their hate, anger, rage, or despair without ever going through the forgiveness process. Their negative energy becomes channeled into constructive activity such as working for victim causes or supporting other victims. They no longer allow the perpetrator to be the center of their lives. They focus on the present and the future. Forgiveness was never part of their process, and I believe this to be fine with God according to how I interpret New Testament Scripture.
For me, I have allowed myself to feel too much guilt for not having forgiven my offenders. I have no intentions of forgiving them. The difference between my first post and this post is that I will no longer concern myself with whether it is right to forgive or if I need to forgive or whether I will fall out of God's grace if I do not forgive. I will no longer focus on whether or not I should forgive. This thread has been a wonderful place for me to safely explore to controversial and and often confusing topic of forgiveness.
One common thread (no pun intended!) I've noticed in post-retreat feelings is one of anger. I plan to write a journal on it, so I'll be brief in that I'll say I think the retreat is a chance to emote so many emotions. Anger is typically not one of them. I got a *wee* bit out at the plate breaking- and I wanted more stuff to break! Still, that wasn't what made me realize. The next day after I got back from the retreat, I was good. The 3rd day, I started slipping back to old habits already. One thing I realized- it was all an angry type emotion. Irritance, impatience, burdened- and angry about it. I even flipped someone off in a car and almost had a little stand-off which is SO not like me. It was then, when I had had cathartic experiences at the retreat with sadness/grief/loss/happiness/lonliness, did I realize what was left pent up- anger.
So I went to therapy a few days later and told Gill... I was angry that day (in traffic). Really pissed! I see it in retrospect how it's been that way for suck a long time. What I always attributed to anxiety, was actually fueled by the anger (anxiety didn't help much, thank God I'm over so much of that now). He sat back, a little stunned and said, "I've been waiting for this. You've never acknowledged ANY anger to me and whenever I've brought it up, you've been dismissive." I think I hit something here...
So I looked back at my thread and what screamed to me was my intellect saying, "Yeah, sure, forgiveness is great if it comes to you, and I'd extend it to anyone who asks. You just have to ask." My emotional part was, "God help you if your my rapist cause there's no way in hell you'd get shit from me." Since the notion that forgiveness is a conscious choice, I was DAMNED if I'd put energy into forgiving that asshole. I think it was clear then also that I had thought of forgiveness as being a process that would mean I'd have to give something of myself away. I'd have to concede something, even if I didn't realize I was thinking that at the time. It was a submissive role I realized, and well folks... that can be an issue.
A lot has happened with me since I wrote that over a year ago :) While many of my core ideals in that post are still intact (like still not liking the word "forgiveness" itself in this context) I definitely have a different view on how that concept relates to me and my relationships, past or present. I went on and on about how I could never forgive, and that's okay. It is okay... but I've realized now I can forgive. It's not the rape that made me aware of this, but my relationship with my mom. I've been working on that for a while, and one gem of a piece of advice I was given by Gill was to try to find another role for my mom in my life besides the "devoted mother" I want her to be that she cannot. This sounds so simple, but makes so much sense. Im trying to create the impossible. I had thought about this before, but only on a 1st step basis. I had thought about letting go of that idea, but then what? I had never considered redefining the relationship into something that I was comfortable with.
That my friends, is MY forgiveness. Redefining the very relationship with the person you are contemplating forgiveness. For my mother, she is now more of like an older woman who is in need of extra emotional help. She cannot be handled with kid gloves, (which I can handle nowvbecause I've done some mental separation) but I can also take a step back and look at things as a whole. I can do what I need to do mentally in the moment to get past the angry triggers she gives me (in light of a last post, yes, she truly triggers me to anger!) and deal with her in a healthy way. Now the deep down stuff with her I'm still working on myself. But separating that from our day to day interactions has really helped. That part is a choice, the choice of forgiveness, but I had to emotionally prepare for that- to get there, and that I just had to wait until it happened. I had a real hard time with the notion that forgiveness was just a simple choice before. Now I know why ;) Cause it's friggin HARD.
As for the ugly person who assaulted me- Redefining that "relationship" is harder. There is no "his side" because I have no idea where he is, thank God. Good news is that means no obstacles from him either. So I'm working on redefining myself. I've gotten rid of a LARGE part of my anxiety disorder. I've finished school, I'm in a better place now then where I was then because of all my hard work. I created the now me, so the NOW me is the one calling the shots with my relationship. The NOW me is much stronger, more open, mature, and confident than the young me. The child me that this relationship between us was started from- where he took advantage. So I'm redefining it. Long way of saying I'm taking my power back.
I still don't like the word forgiveness because it's just... wrong for this situation. It's not about being submissive, being a martyr, or giving selflessly of yourself to be the better person (ugh, can't even handle that definition in this scenario). It's about rising above it, and just finding where your peace is. If someone was to ask me if I forgive him, I'd say, "In the context of which you're using the word, I'd say "No." It has not been requested. Someone cannot be forgiven in the traditional definition of the word because no one is here to accept the forgiveness. BUT, I am getting more close to being good to myself about this. I am dealing in a more healthy way than I ever have, and he has nothing to do with that. He has no role in that, and his exclusion from my life brings me peace." Okay, maybe I wouldn't say all that, but it sounds good to me ;)
Now... to deal with the anger that permeates my life to much. I'm not to a peaceful place yet... but a hell of a lot closer than I was just a year ago!!!
That's what forgiveness means to me :)
I must confess, I was a tad self righteous with the words: you just need to forgive, as that is one of the main foundations Christianity focuses on. I'd never thought much about the topic...I just did what I was told until last December andmy world changed.
Yes, many tragedies had occured before then with death but I wasn't in the place to think about forgiveness; I was just trying to survive.
Now, my thoughts have been evolving and this has been a topic I've looked into ever since I read Marilyn Van Derbur's book and she stated clearly that you do not have to forgive in order to heal. I was astounded, for I'd never heard of such. And then I began to see how such a lack of knowledge in the church is doing much damage to sexual abuse and rape survivors bc one of the first and main things they are telling them is...you must forgive. Facing what I am facing, I realized how utterly devasting that was and how it did not deal with the victim as a person in the depths of crisis, in the depths of need. All it did was purport man's view on God's word which ends up hurting the ones in need.
Now, I do believe the Bible. I do believe in God's word. But I am one to look into if for myself and find the truth, especially if I am going to share it with others. Three great reources I have found, as this has been a current study for months, that give good perspectives on forgiveness in relation to Survivors are: Marilyn's book, The Politics of Forgiveness: How the Christian Church Guilt Trips Survivors by Fred Keene (http://www.caic.org.au/bibiebase/abuse/guiltabuse.htm), and Christian Survivors (http://christian survivors.com/forgiveness.html).
Each give an interesting take on forgiveness...things I'd never taken into consideration before.
Personally, I know I have to forgive my community and all that it held. Why? For the sheer purpose of the effects it has on me today. I am still bound by the effects of yesterday and I believe one way of moving into living in the present is to forgive them. What do I mean when I say to forgive them? I simply mean I let go of all the harmful effects and let God deal with them. Forgiveness is more for me...not them. They are not effected by the emotions they bound me by...I am. So, letting God deal with me and my emotions and committing to forgive them is taking a step that is allowing Him to help me heal. Do I forget, no. Is my guard still going to be up? Yes. But step by step as I forgive their power over me will diminsh.
That's the community scene. The guy that did that to me, I don't even feel like he has a place in my life so I'll forgive him bc I don't even care about him. (not too holy i know) My no longer best friend from years past...that's going to take work bc I want to beat the s*** out of him first. Working towards that forgiveness will be tough...but it's not letting him off the hook...it's just getting it out of my hands into Gods. And the child abuse...if I feel the need to forgive, meaning if something is hindering my growth, then I will. Until then, I'll just focus on the here and now.
Forgiveness is a funny word...bc people use it to their own advantage. A couple things pointed out in book mentioned was how when Jesus was on the cross, dying, he said...forgive them father for they know not what they do. Jesus didn't say: I forgive them. Hmm.
Also when people jump to using the Bible as a backup for must forgivness, they tend to forget the other Scriptures that must be filtered in and looked at accordingly such as the one where Jesus says: "These little ones believe in me. It would be best for the person who causes one of them to lose faith to be drowned in the sea with a large stone hung around his neck." Okay, so what does that say about an abuser, a rapist?!
I know...I am all over the place. I guess as of now, forgiveness means to me not holding on to the woundness of the one who gave the wound...and handing the wound to God so healing can come and make it a scar. It's me letting go...and focusing on me---not them.
There are a couple of other interesting things that have come out of the project
"The Archbishop of Canterbury has been saying some interesting things about forgiveness this week (over Easter). He told the Radio Times: ‘I think the 20th century saw such a level of atrocity that it has focused our minds very, very hard on the dangers of forgiving too easily … because if forgiveness is easy it is as if the suffering doesn’t really matter’. " Now there is a man that talks a lot of sense, he explains more in the sermon he preached which is on the website.
The phrase that has stuck with me for several years, after I first saw the photography exhibition, is "Forgiveness is giving up hope of a better past" - I think there is a lot of truth in that and it doesn't mean we cannot have a great future....
I think it's great.... a definite keeper. Thanks for bringing that to light again.
Very interesting. Look at my reply #15. Perhaps Jesus saw he had nothing to forgive because the rage directed at him wasn't really about him, but rather a by-product of having been caught in a political firestorm. So much human evil is a result of the banal - just people going about their business, but yet devastating God's presence on earth (Christian thinking associates Jesus with Emmanuel - God with us).
My own dealing with this topic - forced on me ten days after the rape - was to realize that a single sin happens on many levels and that the rape was not a sin against me personally. I could "let go" not because I forgave (to me forgiveness requires repentance by the offender), but because his action wasn't fundamentally about me. As for the sin itself I could hand it to God and even pray that the rapist found repentance and reconcilation because I could trust God's anger at what happened to me. I knew God wouldn't let this person off the hook without true repentance.
In my case it was easy to see that the rape was not about me because the rapist was quite literally a total stranger. It really could have been anyone in that car that night. However, I think there is truth to realization that it really was never about us in our truest self almost anytime a person wounds or devastates another. Even when the offender knows a person they are almost always acting out of their own misguided needs, projections, and choices, not out of any genuine connection to the person before them. Were they truly to understand the image of God within the person before them, most offenses would be impossible. I say "most" because there are some sadistic sorts who consider it a power trip to turn the humanity of another into thing-hood. But even when someone is acting sadistically, I think they still are not acting towards the individual they are attacking but rather against what that person symbolizes: a holiness they can desecrate (or at least try).