Sometimes forgiveness is not the result of effort but of understanding the person who has caused us harm. It can help to remember that another person’s actions are usually not about us. As a wise person once said, hurt people hurt people.
Several years ago, a friend and I were having lunch in North Chattanooga. He had recently taken the courageous step of consciously reviewing his past in order to heal old wounds, both in himself and in those he had harmed. While we waited for our food, he told me that one of the things he really struggled with was perfectionism, a character flaw that his father had passed on to him.
“He could make you feel about that big,” he told me, holding up his thumb and forefinger so that they nearly touched. He described how his father would stand over him while he performed some task, waiting for him to make a mistake. If he started to do something wrong, his father would become impatient, tell him he didn’t know what he was doing and take over the task himself.
Listening to my friend describe these painful experiences with his father, I had a glimmer of understanding about what made him tick. I didn’t know it, but I was being prepared for an opportunity to forgive.
As we talked, our server, who also happened to be my guitar instructor that summer, brought our food. As he was leaving, I told him I had been practicing an Eric Clapton guitar solo. Hearing this, my friend looked at me and said, almost gleefully, “You’ll never sound like Eric Clapton!”
I looked at him blankly, not sure how to respond. What would possess someone to make such a bald and hurtful statement? I mean, for crying out loud, here I am listening to him pour out his pain, creating a space for him to reveal himself honestly without judgment. Doesn’t he realize the favor I am doing him? Can’t he see he’s not doing it right?
Oh.
Back into my mind rushed my friend’s description of his father’s disheartening words, his harsh way of making him feel 2 inches tall.
In that moment, I saw clearly that my friend’s hurtful comment had nothing to do with me – it had come out of his own pain, his own sense of not-enough-ness. Compassion for him immediately filled the space in me where defensiveness and hurt pride would normally have festered. Forgiveness came to me then as a gift, born of the understanding I had gained from listening to my friend share his struggles.
These thoughts passed through my mind in a moment, and then I realized – with an inward chuckle – that my friend’s words, though a bit harsh, were true.
“You know, you’re right,” I said, smiling. “I probably won’t ever sound like Eric Clapton!”
L.B. Blackwell has been practicing Eknath Easwaran’s passage meditation for more than 10 years. He lives in Chattanooga with his wife and two daughters. He blogs at mundaneway.blogspot.com.