Forgiveness

You should be on your knees, OmSig, begging forgiveness from those people against whom you made active and vicious attempts to ruin their lives. That's as bad or worse than many "bad guys" who go to prison.

You say such silly things sometimes, David.

However, there's no need at all to respond to my comment.

Can we stick to the thread topic, please?
I think this has been a terrific discussion, dag. I hope there's more to come.

Sometimes?

The Norway town that forgave and forgot its child killers
In 1994, in Trondheim, five-year-old Silje Redergard was beaten to death by two little boys. Today, the girl's family still suffers and one of the boys is in trouble again – the echoes of the Bulger case are clear. So why has the public reaction in Norway been so startlingly different?
Full story

It is too silly to post something like u did
without SPECIFYING your objection.





David

Because then you'd then keep posting forever, David!
I shouldn't even have responded to this. (Sorry, dag!)

You know Olgs, ever since I put OSD on ignore when someone else responds to his now invisible tripe, it's like walking past a room someone farted in. A momentary hint of unpleasantness, but gone straight away.

Your post is incomprehensible without greater specificity.
I cannot judge whether u were right or rong, for paucity of information.





David

i forgive you all ;-)

now...let's move on. have anything on forgiveness?

I COUNTERforgive u !





David

I think the difficulty for folks on the outside looking in is even imagining this situation. That's why, as irritating as he is sometimes, I really appreciate JTT's persistence in nailing home these points. I think of myself as a fairly empathetic person, but when I read these things the first thought that comes to mind is, "I can't begin to imagine..." And, I think that's true for most people who think about it. These situations are unimaginable. Most people DON'T think about them. But they do wonder why bitterness and animosities fester for generations.

I think we are having issues with the concept of group forgiveness because we are equating it with the process of individual forgiveness. Forgiving is not a passive thing it is an active thing. A person actively tries to forgive. This isn't the same as letting time heal a wound. Forgiving someone does not mean that the wound does not still hurt and twinge once in a while. The issues I see in this thread are:

1) Forgiveness is active, requires will to forgive. A group of individuals have will, but does a group whole have will? One might argue yes they do. voting is the will of the group. But the actions are individual. If the individuals of the group do not try to exercise the will to forgive individually in more numbers than those who don't can a group forgive? This is why I was thinking that once the hurt has been catalogued in the files of the groups mythos and has not direct hurt left for the the average individual, that is might qualify for group forgiveness.

2) Without a will to forgive, a group might be relegated to the time heals all wounds passive 'forgiveness', which I'm not sure is really forgiveness. As a groups of Americans who do not remember WW2 most associate Japan with electronics, weird TV, and cartoons. Pearl harbor, although still in the history books has no direct emotional connection with modern day Japan. it has been shifted into the American cultural mythos of The Crysanthamum and The Sword.

This brings up the problem of, can a generation with direct experience of a hurt forgive as a whole?

My sentiments as well.

any community is an imagined community, it will always consist of individuals who proceed to imagine it as one organism. Within this imagined reality, there are always drivers, or carriers, if you will, who shape the dynamics of the group, including things like persistence of trauma (not all potentially traumatic events become a collective trauma, only some that are given a meaning and significance in a group), or notion of forgiveness.... People will perceive group as a unit that thinks and feels and forgives, but of course, that is a socially constructed notion and there is a whole complex process behind it with at least some identifiable people behind it at some point.

In 1978, I joined Mensa. I then attended my first Mensa Regional Gathering (a convention) in a major hotel of Manhattan.
I had called the NY Telephone Co., by whom I had been told that a local call from a non-coin fone cost 6 cents.
At about that time, a spiritual advisor named Tony (whose wisdom I respected) recommended forgiveness
and he suggested that we practice doing it. We needed targets; someone to forgive.

I enjoyed the first day of the 1978 New York Mensa Regional Gathering.
It had been my practice, of some years standing, that I called home occasionally to speak to my dead friend, Neil,
just to make sure that everything was OK. I had grown acccustomed to drawing assurance from this practice.

In the evening, I was in the Hospitality Suite of the convention, up on the 18th Floor of the hotel.
I saw a fone and I wanted to call home, as was my wont. I thawt it best to ask permission before using that fone.
Accordingly, I asked permission of a lady named Marlene who was on the Mensa Board of Directors to use that fone; she refused.
I offered her a dime; she refused again.
I offered her a quarter; she refused again.
I offered her a dollar; she refused again.

It occurred to me to simply throw $1 at her and use the fone anyway,
but I restrained myself out of respect for private property.
Internally, I was in a rage, but I confined myself to reasonable politeness.
I did not call home; I coud have gone down to the street floor
and used a coin fone, but I was too lazy for that, in keeping with tradition.

Thus, I did not call home; (in 1978, we did not have cell fones).
In furtherance of Tony 's advice, I used Marlene as a mental target for forgiveness.
It was like lifting a heavy weight (wate) and most unpleasant to do, but I did it.

In 1980, I was on the NY Mensa Board of Directors and we had another convention, to raise more fund$.
I was the Treasurer of that convention. Accordingly, I had possession of the Treasure (registration revenues)
and officers of NY Mensa applied to me to honor their expense accounts. Marlene called me and she requested me
to re-imburse her for a (personal) call from the hotel to New Jersey, in the amount of $6.
In keeping with policy of the Board of Directors, I refused to pay her for a personal call.
Marlene called me at home several times to get her $6 back.
I consistently refused and I never paid her. (Multiple be the chuckles.)

" What goes around comes around."

I was impressed by the exact 100:1 ratio of her $6 call
to my (frustrated and unexecuted) 6 cent call.

" The wheels of the gods grind slowly, but thay grind exceeding fine. "





David

David, that seems more like a revenge than forgiveness from what you describe, no?

It DOES.
Is forgiveness a weapon ?

Must it be registered with the police ?
Must we get a license to forgive ???????





David

Caught out yet again, OmSig tries to wow the multitudes with his "logic".

You'll have to forgive OSD, because he's supposed to be a Mensa member.

No, it is not a weapon, for it happens within one person. The other does not need to even know about it and often does not know about it. If he or she is told about it, that is a separate act, coming after forgiveness; it is not a part of the act of forgiveness.