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Open the Door to Forgiveness

Lewis B. Smedes

 

1    Someone hurt you, maybe yesterday, maybe longago, and you cannot forget it. You did not deserve the hurt and it has lodgeditself in your memory, where it keeps on hurting.

2    You are notalone. We all muddle our way through a world where even well-meaning peoplehurt one another. A friend betrays us; a parent abuses us; a spouse leaves us.

3    PhilosopherHannah Arendt believes that the only power that can stop the stream of painfulmemories is the “faculty of forgiving.” In thatspirit, one December day in 1983, Pope John Paul II walked into a cell ofRebibbia prison outside Rometo meet Mehmet Ali Agca. The Pope took the hand of the man who had tried tokill him, and forgave him.

4     For most ofus, however, it is not easy to forgive. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Oursense of fairness tells us that people should pay for thewrong they do. But in forgiving we can move from hurting and hating to healingand reconciliation.

5    Hate is ournatural response to deep and unfair hurts. A woman wishes her former husband would be miserable with his new wife. Aman whose friend has betrayed him hopes the friend will be fired from his job. Hateis a malignancy that festers and grows, stifling joy and threatening ourhealth.¹ It hurts the hater more than the hated. It must be cutout — for our own sake.

6          How canthis be done? How can you let go of a hurt, the way a child opens his hands andfrees a trapped butterfly? Here are guidelinesto help you begin to forgive:

7    Confront your malice. None of us wants to admit that we hatesomeone, so we hide it from ourselves. But the furydenied rages beneath the surface and infects all our relationships.²Admitting our hate compels us to make a decision about the surgery of the soulwe call forgiving. We must acknowledge what hashappened, face up to the other person and say: “You did me wrong.”

8     Liz was anassistant professor of biology at a university in California. She was a good teacher, and thechairman of her department promised to ask the dean to promoteher. Instead, his report was so critical of her performance that the deanadvised her to look for another job.

9.   Liz hated the chairman for betraying her, butshe needed a recommendation from him. When hesaid how sorry he was that his support could not convince the dean, shepretended to believe him. But she could not keep up the duplicity. One day sheconfronted him. His embarrassed denial enabled Liz to see him for the weakperson he was.³ She began to feel the power she needed toforgive him and, in her decision to do so, was set free of her hate.

10    Separate thewrongdoer from the wrong. The Bible describes, in the ancient

drama of atonement, how God took a bundleof human sins off man’s back, tied it to a goat, and sent the “scapegoat” to a“solitary land.” Forgiving is finding a newvision of the person who has wronged us, the person stripped of his sins — whoreally lives beneath the cloak of his wrongdoing.⁴

11   The firstgift we get when we separate the wrong from the wrongdoer is

insight. As we come to see the deeper truth about people — that they are fallible — our feelings change. At 16 my adopteddaughter, Cathy, was a hot head who bitterly resented her natural mother forgiving her away.⁵ Why had she not been worth keeping? Then shefound out that her parents had been very young and poor and not married.

12    About thistime, one of Cathy’s friends became pregnant and, in fear and

doubt, gave up her baby for adoption. Cathyshared her friend’s conflict, and was sure her decision had been right.Gradually she came to feel that her own mother, too, had done the right thing —she had given her baby away because she loved her too much to keep her. Cathy’snew understanding brought her resentment down to forgiving size.

13    Let go ofthe past. A friend of mine, a beautiful actress, was left crippled by

a car accident a few years ago. Her husbandstayed with her until she had partially recovered. Then, coldly, he left her.

14    She couldhave mortgaged her future to hate.⁶ Instead, she forgave her

husband and wished him well. I was skeptical. “Suppose he married a sexy young starlet.Would you wish him to be happy with her?”

15   “Yes, I would,” she answered.

16   This does notmean my friend has entirely forgotten the hurt. In fact,

forgetting too soon may be a dangerousway to escape forgiving’s inner surgery.⁷ Once we have forgiven, however, forgetting is a sign of health. Wecan forget, eventually, because we are healed.

17    Don’t giveup on forgiveness — keep working at it. As a boy, the British

scholar C. S. Lewis was badly hurt by abully of a teacher. For most of his life he could not forgive the teacher andthis troubled him. But not long before he died, he wrote to a friend:“only afew weeks ago, I realized suddenly that I had at last forgiven the cruelschoolmaster who so darkened my childhood. I’d been trying to do it for years,and each time I thought I’d done it, I found it had to be attempted again. But this time I feel sure it is thereal thing.”

18   The hatehabit is hard to break. We usually break it many times before we

finally get rid of it. And the deeper thehurt, the longer it can take. But slowly it happens.

19   Persuasivearguments have been made against forgiving. Some say that

forgiveness is unjust because the wrongdoershould not be let off the hook. Others say forgiveness is a sign of weakness.Bernard Shaw called it “a beggar’s refuge.”

20    I disagree. Vengeance never evens the score. It ties both theinjured and

the injurer to an endless escalator ofretaliation.⁸ Gandhi was right: If weall live by the “eye for an eye” brand of justice, the whole world will beblind.⁹ Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said after World War II: “Wemust finally be reconciled with our foe, lest weboth perish in the vicious circle of hatred.” Forgiveness breaks the grip thatpast wrong and pain have on our minds.

21   Tounderstand forgiveness, we should keep in mind that we are seldom

merely sinned against.¹⁰ You may contribute to your spouse’sinfidelity by ignoring your partner’s needs and desires, or bring on your children’s rebellionby your cold judgments and hot temper. A man I’ll call Mark thought of hiswife, Karen, as domineering; himself as ineffective and timid. One night at aparty, Karen laughingly called Mark a mama’s boy who had never grown up. Whenthey got home Mark shouted: “I will never forgive you for this!” His rage was acover for the weakness he dared not face.

22    Through her own contrition, Karen learnedthat she herself was weak and

afraid. Her toughness had been a way tokeep her secret demons under control. When she found the courage to reveal herneeds to Mark, he became strong enough to drop his mask of anger. In mutualforgiveness, they creatively combined their weaknesses and strengths to forge afar healthier relationship without illusions.¹¹

23          When we forgive, we come asclose as any human can to the essentially

divine act of creation.¹² We heal the hurt and create a newbeginning out of past pain.

 

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Question

1.What does the author mean by saying “We all muddle our way through a world whereeven well-meaning people hurt one another”? (Paragraph2)

      Thesentence means that “we all could make some silly mistakes due to our carelessnessor in some confusing state”.

      This sentence is closely related with theprevious one, because the author switches “you” in the previous sentence and inthe first paragraph to “we.” This change is necessary, because “you” refers tothe reader in particular, while “we” includes the reader, the author and otherpeople in general. Thus the switch confirms the statement: “You are not alone.”

 

Wordsand Expressions

1. betrayv. beunfaithful to

e.g. Judasbetrayed Jesus to the authorities.

    You have betrayed our trust in you, and forthat you must be punished.

Derivation:

  betrayal n.

 betrayer n.

Collocation:

  betraysb. / sth. to sb. hand over or show sb. / sth. disloyally to an enemy

  betrayoneself show what or who one really is

 

2.abuse v.say unkind or rude things to

e.g. Sheabused him roundly for his neglect.

    An angry passenger abused the stationmanager for the late running of the train.

Derivation:

abusive a.

Synonym:

  misuse

Comparison:abuse,misuse

  misuseto treat something or somebody badly. It is often used about objects.

  abuse make bad or wrong use of. It israrely used about objects, but when it is used in this way it is stronger thanmisuse, and suggests that there is damage.

 

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Wordsand Expressions

3. facultyn. anatural power of the mind

e.g.For the moment her critical faculties seemed to have deserted her.

    He had not lost his mental faculties.

Collocation:

facultyof /for doing sth.

e.g.She has a great faculty for learning languages.

 

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Question

1.How does the author comment on forgiveness and hate? (Paragraph5)

   The author admits that “it is not easy toforgive. Forgiving seems almost unnatural.” “Our sense of fairness tells usthat people should pay for the wrong they do” and “hate is our naturalresponse.” However, he believes that forgiveness brings about healing andreconciliation while hate only darkens our life and affects our health.

 

Wordsand Expressions

4. payfor v. receivepunishment or suffering for sth.

e.g. Hepaid dearly for his unfaithfulness to her.

    With aten-year prison sentence, he’s paying dearly for his crimes now.

Collocation:

  payback return money to sb. that one has borrowed from him; punish sb. or getone’s revenge

  pay in/ into put money into a bank account

  payout (regularly) make a large payment of money for sth.

 

Exercise: Choose a proper phrase in its appropriate form to filleach blank in the following sentences.

 

pay for   pay back   pay into     pay out

 1. I _______ a lot of money for that car.         (paid out)

2.These people must be made to ____ their crimes.        (pay for)

3. HaveI ______you ______ the $10 I borrowed?       (paid … back)

 4. Have you_____ the cheque _____your accountyet?      (paid… into)

 5. I’ll _____ him _____ for what he did tome!           (pay … back)

       

5. formera. of an earlier period or time;being the first mentioned of two things or people

e.g. Informer times people were hanged for stealing inBritain.

   Of thetwo possibilities, the former seems more likely.

Derivation:

   formerly ad.

Antonym:

  current; present

Collocation:

  ashadow of one’s former self not having the strength, influence, etc. thatone formerly had

e.g.She used to be a great player, but now she’s only a shadow of her former self.

    她以前是个健将，现在已不及当年了。

 

Sentences

1. Hate is a malignancy that festers andgrows, stifling joy and threatening our health. (Paragraph5)

Translation:仇恨是一种会不断生长壮大的恶意，压抑快乐，并威胁我们的健康。

 

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Question

1.What does the author mean by saying “the way a child opens his hand and frees atrapped butterfly”? (Paragraph 6)

      By comparing cutting out hate to freeinga trapped butterfly, the author implies that forgiveness would not be thatdifficult if you follow his guidelines.

 

Wordsand Expressions

6. trapv.unable to move or escape

e.g. Theywere trapped in the burning hotel.

    Thelift broke down and we were trapped inside.

Collocation:

  trapsb. into sth. / doing sth. catch sb. by a trick

 

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Questions

1. What is the first problem in ourattempt to achieve forgiveness? (Paragraph 7)

  The first problem is that we usually do notadmit that we hate someone who has hurt us.

2.What can be learnt from Liz’s case? (Paragraph 9)

   Liz’s case indicates that facing up to thewrongdoer and admitting your hate gives you the power to forgive, andconsequently you are freed from the hate.

 

Wordsand Expressions

7.malice n. intentionto hurt sb.

e.g.She certainly bears you no malice.

    Therewas no malice in his words, just disappointment.

Derivation:

malicious a.

maliciouslyad.

maliciousnessn

Collocation:

  malicious towards sb. desire to harmothers

 

8. furyn.very great anger

e.g.He was in one of his uncontrollable furies.

    She flew into a fury when I wouldn’t lendher any money.

Derivation:

  furious a.

 

9. ragev.wild uncontrollable anger

e.g.He raged against me for disagreeing.

    I ragedfor hours at the decision.

Derivation:

  raging a.

Collocation:

  rageat / against sb. / sth. show violent anger

Synonym:

  anger; fury

 

10. infectv. make sb. else have feelings of thesame type

e.g. Sheinfected the whole class with her enthusiasm.

Her cheerful spirits and bubblinglaughter infected the whole class.

Derivation:

  infectious a.

 infectiously ad.

  infectionn

Collocation:

  infect with (of a disease) to get into thebody of (someone), often through the air

 

11. compel v.forcea person to do sth.

e.g. We cannot compel you to do it,but we think you should.

   I was compelled to acknowledge the force ofhis argument.

Derivation:

compellinga.

Synonym:

  oblige; force

Comparison:compel;impel

compel to make (a person or thing) do something, by force, moralpersuasion, or orders that must be obeyed

impel (esp.of an idea, feeling, etc.) to drive (someone) to take action

 

12. acknowledge v. admit; recognize the fact

e.g. When the results of the votewere announced, the Prime Minister acknowledged defeat.

    She is acknowledged as an expert on thesubject.

Collocation:

acknowledge sb. as sth.

Derivation:

acknowledgementn.

 

13. promote v. give sb. a higher position

e.g. My daughter has just beenpromoted!

The young army officerwas promoted to the rank of captain.

Derivation:

  promotionn.

  promoter n.

  promotional a.

Collocation:

  promotesb. to sth. raise sb. to a higher position or rank

Antonym:

  demote

 

14. recommendation n. the act of praisingas being good for a purpose

e.g. The government has agreed toimplement the recommendations in the report.

We bought the car on Paul’srecommendation.

Derivation:

  recommend v.

  recommendable a.

 

Sentences

2. But the fury denied rages beneath thesurface and infects all our relationships. (Paragraph7)

Explanation:But the hate that we refuse to admit is right there burning inside us andinfluences all our relationships.

Translation:但这种深藏的怒火在我们心底燃烧，影响着我们的人际关系。

 

3. His embarrassed denial enabled Liz tosee him for the weak person he was. (Paragraph 9)

Translation:他尴尬的否认让利兹看到了他内心脆弱的一面。

 

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Question

1. What can we learn from the case ofthe author’s adopted daughter?

   Cathy’s case proves the author’s suggestedguideline. Separating the wrong from the wrongdoer would enable you to get anew and true understanding of the person. Then you come to be aware that he/sheis, after all, a human being and is as fallible as yourself.

 

Wordsand Expressions

15. solitary a. lonely

e.g. He formed the habit of takinglong solitary walks through the streets.

   One solitary tree grew on the mountainside.

Derivation:

  solitarily ad.

  solitariness n.

Synonym:

lonely

 

16. insight a. the power of using one’s mind to understand the true nature of asituation

e.g. Her autobiography gave me aninsight into the way government actually works.

   Jerry soon established himself as ascientist of great insight and creativity.

Derivation:

  insightful a.

Collocation:

 insight into

 

17. fallible a. likely to be wrong

e.g. We are fallible beings.

    He was only human, and fallible, and thusmight have misjudged her.

Derivation:

  fallibility n.

Antonym:

infallible

 

Activity: Role Play

The students are expected tohave a role play. Three students in each group are involved in this play wherea wife is going to divorce her husband because he betrayed her. One studentgives a monologue, one student acts as the wife, and the last as the husband. Thestudents are supposed to use the following words in their performance as manyas possible. And the result of the performance will be judged by the teacherand other groups as well.

 

betray         pay for       hide from      former           malice   compel     acknowledge     set free        promote          abuse

 

Sentences

4. Forgiving is finding a new vision ofthe person who has wronged us, the person stripped of his sins--who reallylives beneath the cloak of his wrongdoing. (Paragraph10)

Translation:谅解就是看到曾经亏待过我们的那个人新的一面，他摆脱了自己的罪恶——让我们看到了隐藏在罪恶下面的真实面貌。

 

5. At 16 my adopted daughter, Cathy, wasa hothead who bitterly resented her natural mother for giving her away. (Paragraph 11)

Translation:我的养女凯茜在16岁的时候非常容易冲动，她对生母把她自己送给别人抚养怨恨不已。

 

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Question

1. How does the author understand theguideline “Let go of the past” in relation with forgiveness? (Paragraph 16)

   The author thinks that if we have forgivensomebody, we can forget the past and eventually heal our wound. But it could bedangerous to forget before we forgive, because the “inner surgery” has not beendone yet, and the wound is still there hurting us.

 

Wordsand Expressions

18skeptical a.doubting; distrustful

e.g.The more I read about the causes of the war, the more skeptical I become.

    Mostdoctors remain highly skeptical about the value of alternative medicine.

Derivation:

skepticn

skepticallyad.

skepticism n.

 

Sentences

6. She could have mortgaged her futureto hate. (Paragraph 14)

Paraphrase:She could have given up her future in order to keep hating.

 

7. In fact, forgetting too soon may be adangerous way to escape forgiving’s inner surgery. (Paragraph16)

Explanation:In fact, it may be dangerous to forget before our “inner” wounds are healed byour “forgiving”. In other words, we cannot skip this process of being healed byforgiving.

Translation:实际上，忘记得太早很危险，因为这时候我们的心灵创伤还没有被谅解抚平。

 

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Question

1. What does the C.S. Lewis’ exampleindicate?

   The example indicates that true forgivenesstakes a long time. Sometimes you think you have done it while you haven’t. Youhave to keep working at it and make it happen.

 

Wordsand Expressions

19. attemptv.try to do sth., esp. sth. difficult

e.g.The second question was so difficult that I didn’t even attempt it.

    He attempted to leave but was stopped.

Derivation:

  attempt n.

Synonym:

  try

 

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Question

1. What does the author mean by “Vengeancenever evens the score”? (Paragraph 20)

 The author means that retaliation just setsoff an endless chain of further retaliation.

 

Wordsand Expressions

20.vengeance n. revenge

e.g.He swore to take vengeance on the people who had killed his sister.

    Herbertswore vengeance on the murderers of his father.

Collocation:

  vengeanceon / upon sb. paying back of an injury that one has suffered

Synonym:

  revenge

 

21. reconcilev. bring back friendly relationsbetween

e.g. Howdo you reconcile your political principles with your religious beliefs?

They quarreled, but now they’recompletely reconciled.

Derivation:

  reconcilable a.

  reconciliation n

Synonym:

  harmonize

Collocation:

 reconcile with

 

Sentences

8. It ties both the injured and theinjurer to an endless escalator of retaliation. (Paragraph20)

Explanation:It makes both the injured and the injurer increasingly vengeful.

Translation:它将伤害者和被伤害者都置于无穷无尽、愈演愈烈的报复之中。

 

9. If we all live by the “eye for an eye”brand of justice, the whole world will be blind. (Paragraph 20)

 Translation:如果我们都遵循“以牙还牙、以眼还眼”的司法模式，那么整个世界都将陷入盲目行动之中。

 

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Question

1. What does the author want to show withthe example of Mark? (Paragraph 23)

   The author wants to show that we all haveweaknesses as well as strengths and that we should admit and reveal them toothers, if we want to enjoy healthy relationships.

 

Wordsand Expressions

22. bring on result in

e.g. The collapse of his health wasbrought on by undernourishment.

    Her fever was brought on by goingout in the rain.

 

23. rebellionn. an organized attempt to change thegovernment by using violence

e.g. Alarge rise in food prices led to a rebellion against the government.

The slaves rose in rebellionagainst their masters.

Derivation:

  rebellious a.

  rebel v.

Collocation:

 rebellion against

 

Activity:Pyramid-climbing Competition

The class is divided into two groups.The teacher will explain the words by using examples and paraphrase, and astudent from each group will write down the words in the blanks one by one fromthe bottom to the top of the pyramid. Once the student cannot write down theword, another student from his / her group continues the job. The group whichcan reach the top of the pyramid first wins.

              

insight

     

 

Sentences

10. To understand forgiveness, we shouldkeep in mind that we are seldom merely sinned against. (Paragraph21)

Explanation:To have a better understanding of forgiveness, we should realize that we areseldom mere victims of other people’s sins or wrong doings. We also sin againstothers.

Translation:要理解宽恕，我们应时刻牢记，我们很少仅仅是单纯的受害者。

 

11. In mutual forgiveness, theycreatively combined their weaknesses and strengths to forge a far healthierrelationship without illusions. (Paragraph 22)

Translation:通过相互谅解，他们极具创造力地将自己的弱点和长处结合起来，打造出一种更为健康、更为实在的人际关系。

 

12. … we come as close as any human canto the essentially divine act of creation. (Paragraph23)

Explanation:… we have done our best as humans to come close to the superhuman act ofcreation.

Translation:我们便能如同任何人一样，最大限度地接近了最基本的、神圣的创造之举。