by Patricia Smith Melton
Founder, Peace X Peace
Editor, Sixty Years, Sixty Voices: Israeli and Palestinian Women

Is forgiveness still a useful concept? Is it relevant in a world where corporations and governments and greedy people, and even nice people, do so much deliberate and inadvertent harm that we could spend every minute of every day just in forgiving? Is more forgiveness needed or more outrage? Does premature forgiveness give consent to continue violating us?

With such a daily onslaught of direct and indirect harm, it’s easy to give in to numbness. I have stood over the newspaper at the kitchen counter several times this past year and found myself thinking that outrage wasn’t worth the effort. But numbness isn’t inner peace and it doesn’t bring happiness. Instead, it brings depression and allows continuing injustice—retreating into a dulled emotional autopilot is interpreted as a paper-tiger forgiveness that allows the greedy, arrogant, slipshod, violent, and misguided to continue to abuse us.

Full disclosure:  I am in the middle of a divorce—and I’m taking an advanced course in “Ferocious Forgiveness for Today’s World.” My need to learn and navigate the relationship between injury, outrage, and forgiveness is immediate. This course is “24/7, in situ, upfront and personal,” and is a work in process. I haven’t mastered it so far.

What I do know can be broken out in chapter précis—and applied beyond personal drama.

1) Definition of Ferocious Forgiveness:  forgiveness tied to accountability in order to prevent the spread of more injury. If the preferred Option #1 of accountability and any necessary restitution is not possible, then go to Option #2 to find ways to neutralize the ability to do future damage.

2) Current world situation: The meek do not inherit the earth. They are covered with oil, raped as war booty, overlooked by lawmakers, scammed out of their pensions, abused by clergy, shunned as dirty and uneducated, cheated in the fine print, traded as sex slaves. They die of diseases that the wealthy and powerful do not get. Battering of women inside their homes is the most frequent and ignored violence in the world.

Workers for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the US Fish and Wildlife Service prepare to net an oiled pelican in Barataria Bay, LA (Image: Petty Officer 2nd Class John Miller/US Coast Guard)

3) Sources of injuries:  These barbarisms are the consequence of deliberate or casual acts of corporate and personal arrogance, greed, sense of entitlement, childishness, limited communication skills, lack of empathy, and fear of shared power. Each of these is a form of a negative, of the lack of authenticity whether of a person or an institution. Without a sense of personal authenticity there is no means for self-examination, no mirror, no mature consciousness against which to discern delusions or make corrections. Key point: there is no internal mechanism for accountability. When there is no innate accountability, it is up to you and me, my friends, to provide external accountability in order to stop damage and gain restorative justice so our people and planet can survive, and thrive.

And, yes, I understand I am talking in absolutes, in blacks and whites—but this is a crash course. Nuance may come later.

I also understand that the lack of personal authenticity is not necessarily a voluntary choice. It may not even be experienced as something missing. It is, as I imagine it, felt as a hungry hole that needs to be filled by profit, power, adoration, and immediate satisfaction. But Ferocious Forgiveness, unlike Forgiveness 101, says, “That’s no excuse.”

4) Solution: You and me. We are the mirror holders, we are the inventory takers, we are the auditors, we are the people who say “no,” “yes,” or “maybe.” We are the people who speak up. We are the modelers of right action. We are the people who boycott. We are the people who empower nonviolence with our bodies and creativity. We are the people who choose NOT to go numb. We are the people who roll up our sleeves and clean up after the damage. We are the people who embrace our children and teach them right from wrong. We are the life learners, the people who tend the meek, weary, and needy. We are the people who stand up against injustice, who write op-eds and our congresspersons. We are the people who wash oil off pelicans. We are the people who say “You will not do this to me or to anyone else.” For we, each and all, deserve to be treated well and together we will make that happen, because we care for each other and our futures are tied together.

5) The Intimate Dance of Ferocious Forgiveness:  If we do not forgive, we too are lost, this time by our own hand. Forgiveness requires the recognition of human commonality, and of our own faults. This can be difficult to do, but amazing people we take as leaders do it. We recognize this truth in people like Mandela.

First Nations people & their supporters march in Toronto to demand restorative justice

Forgiveness and ferocity are not opposites. They are yin-yang. As Ferocious Forgivers, we do not ignore damage. We pick our causes, work actively for restoration, and do it together—spotting each other, using humor and creativity, always non-violent, and keeping personal awareness and authenticity.

That’s as far as I am in this post-doc course to date. Perhaps sometimes there are transformations, perhaps sometimes erasure, perhaps sometimes creative re-connecting. Perhaps all things are possible.

In short form, the question is:

Why do you hurt me?

Have you forgotten, or did you never know?

In short form, Ferocious Forgiveness says:

I look you in the eyes.

You will stop hurting me now.