152. Forgiveness Saves

Imagine you live in a small town in a remote area, isolated from the rest of civilization. One day, a member of your community does something that significantly harms other members of the community. The wrongdoer recognizes their error and takes responsibility for their actions. But the community struggles to accept the apology. You are angry because you cannot understand how anyone could do this and you feel betrayed.

The community must decide what to do. You cannot send the wrongdoer away, for they have no other home than here. There is literally nowhere else for them to go. The only solution is to come to terms with what has happened and rebuild. The community can punish the wrongdoer, but eventually forgiveness must come. You must forgive because any chance of living happily with the wrongdoer depends on them being brought back into the fold.

The alternative would be to turn the wrongdoer into a permanent other, an outsider who is no longer welcome. But banishment will only lead to the community’s end. By dwelling in anger, the fractures will not end here. Others will do wrong in the future and be banished too, until eventually there is nothing left. The only way to save the community is forgiveness and reconciliation.

In the world we actually live in — a world of space and mobility — we often ignore this truth. When people do wrong, we send them away, ostracizing them from our communities and organizations. This is bad for them and it is bad for us. It’s bad for them not just because they have to find a new community, but also because they learn that mistakes lead to catastrophic punishments and they begin to hide their faults and errors. It’s bad for us because we do not learn the value of forgiveness, and we live in the past instead of the present.

We must understand that mistakes happen, sometimes even ones that cause irreparable harm. We must accept that we are fallible and learn how to rebuild when wrongdoing inevitably occurs. We must understand that we all have gaps in our awareness and that this means lapses in judgment will happen. Our best possible response to wrongdoing is always to work together towards greater awareness so that the harmful actions will not be taken again.