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How do people find March 18, 2007 For an act expressed in mere words, forgiveness inspires fierce reactions. Awe at the sight of forgiveness extended from a sea of grief. Perplexity at forgiveness granted in situations in which we ourselves cannot imagine doing so. Fury on the part of those struggling through their own grief when outsiders urge them to forgive. Forgiveness came into view last week in the words of Sue Pilgreen, whose 21-year-old son, Jerod, was one of four young people killed in a North Side fire. Within only two days of confronting a parent's worst nightmare, Pilgreen forgave the homeless woman who has been charged with arson and four counts of murder. "I firmly believe that the woman that they have arrested, if she has done this, she must have had something wrong with her," she told the Tribune's Jeff Long. "I have forgiven her because I don't think she was in her right mind." Even to an expert whose professional life is devoted to urging people to find peace through forgiveness, it seemed remarkable. "The murder or death of a child is the single hardest thing that people seem to be able to recover from.... Most people require a good degree of time to process the horrible wounding before they think of forgiveness," said Fred Luskin, co-founder and director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project, which has conducted and studied forgiveness training in various settings, including with families of murder victims in Northern Ireland. More commonly, he said, people reluctantly decide to forgive someone because they are desperate to end a long period of suffering. "They say, There's only so much I can take, so much grief, so much anger. I'm going to eat myself alive, there has to be a better way." The exceptions tend to be people motivated by faith, such as the Amish in Lancaster County, Pa., who stunned outsiders in October by forgiving the gunman who killed five girls and wounded five others at a school before killing himself. Indeed, it was Pilgreen's faith that moved her to forgive, she said, reflecting days later on her swift reaction. "All I could think of was that Jesus forgave the two criminals that were on the cross next to him when he was crucified," Pilgreen said. "That is my belief. If Jesus can forgive them, then that is what we should do. And then maybe this would be a better place if people would just not hold grudges." But faith does not lead all people to the same place. Patricia Nichols, of the South Side, is a church-going woman. "I am a believer; I do believe," she said. "And I know that God says we're supposed to forgive. But I'm not there." Nichols is in agony. Her only child, Tasha Nichols Mack, was murdered in North Carolina four years ago at age 27. Mack's estranged husband has been charged in the murder. Nichols can imagine forgiving a person who did not intend to cause harm. But someone who stabbed her daughter to death? No. "Do I forgive? Right now I can tell you, No, I don't," said Nichols, 54, a retired Chicago Police Department personnel employee who with her husband helped start the Chicago-area chapter of the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children. People sometimes tell her that she should forgive her daughter's killer. It makes her furious. "It's easy for a person to tell you what you should or you should not do when ... they cannot even imagine what you are going through," she said. "That was my only child. She was my life. It happened May 1, 2003, and this is 2007 and I think about her every single day. And it seems as though it just happened yesterday. That's what people don't understand. It's nothing you can just get over like that." Looking past murder There are people who do forgive deliberate acts of violence. When Essy Glenn, a South Side woman whose college freshman son was fatally shot in Jacksonville, Fla., saw her son's accused killer in court, she mouthed the words at him, "I forgive you." "Early on, after I thought I hated him and the entire city of Jacksonville, I told God that if you could find the murderer or murderers, I would forgive him and never hate him," she told the Tribune's Tonya Maxwell last year, after the gunman was convicted. "Every day I wake up and say, `Let me forgive this person and not be consumed by the hatred.'" But others choose not to forgive. Their choice should be respected, said Nancy Ruhe, executive director of Cincinnati-based Parents of Murdered Children. Instead, they are often pressured to forgive. Forgiveness makes for a story people find comforting, she said, while parents' profound anger is upsetting to behold. And it is easier for society to urge people to forgive than to genuinely support grieving parents, she said. A story such as the one about the Amish families extending forgiveness is painful for families of murder victims, Ruhe said. "I got a million phone calls saying, `Gosh, these people are forgiving; isn't this wonderful?' And I'm thinking, no, there's a family out there thinking, I'm a leper because I can't do that." Ruhe thinks it's fine if someone truly can forgive, though she also thinks it's exceedingly rare. "Just don't make a prerequisite," she said. "You don't have to forgive to move forward. ... You will just have one less thing to be angry about." But that anger is a very large thing, say those who research forgiveness, and losing it can transform lives. Studies have shown that people who forgive those who have hurt them experience substantial benefits. "There is less anger, less hurt, less stress, less depression, more hopefulness, more compassion and lower blood pressure," said Luskin, the author of the 2001 book "Forgive for Good," which offers a nine-step program on learning to forgive. That was true even in studies he conducted among people who had experienced the worst of life's horrors, Luskin said, such as the mothers of children murdered in the violence of Northern Ireland. Robert Enright, a professor in the department of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin and one of the founders of the International Forgiveness Institute in Madison, Wis., has done such studies on female incest survivors. Those who were able to forgive their abusers--it took an average of 14 months of weekly counseling sessions--emerged from depression and anxiety and showed increased self-esteem and hope for the future. "A person [who forgives] is quite literally set free from the bondage of resentment," he said. Professor sees paradox Forgiveness is a paradox, Enright said: It is a gift given by a person who has been hurt to a person whose actions have rendered him undeserving, but the person who benefits is the one who gives the gift. "A lot of times those who perpetrated terrible things don't even care," he said. "We're the ones who are collapsing in on ourselves." Victims' families often are aware of the benefits of forgiveness, even if they are not ready to grant it, said Kimberly New, director of the Victim Witness Assistance Program in the Cook County state's attorney's office. "We do have a number of people who express that one day they hope to reach a path of forgiveness, that they do not want to spend the rest of their lives angry," she said. Enright has been researching and promoting forgiveness for 23 years. The International Forgiveness Institute is currently doing forgiveness training with Milwaukee schoolchildren in a program intended to reduce anger, depression and anxiety, and improve academic achievement and behavior. But as deeply as Enright believes in the benefits of forgiveness, he said he would never pressure a Patricia Nichols to forgive. Forgiveness is a gift, he emphasized. "It is in the realm of mercy." And it is no simple gift. The words are generally the final step of a long, painful process. Sometimes a wound is too recent for people to consider forgiveness, Luskin said; sometimes people think they have an obligation to keep a grievance alive. "For people who feel mistreated ... a complete lack of reconciliation [seems] to be a kind of righteous response," he said. Forgiveness is not a pardon, Enright has written in studies, and it should not depend on an offender's apology, because that would give the power of healing to the offender. Forgiveness also is not magic. Luskin admires Sue Pilgreen's expression of forgiveness, but hopes no one mistakes it for closure. "I would be surprised if the emotional release would be complete at this point, because a devastating loss like that requires time," he said. Even in her grief, Pilgreen herself has a clear sense of what forgiveness is, and is not. "It doesn't mean she shouldn't be punished," she said. "We are forgiven by God, but there is still punishment. "I'm Catholic, and confession is an important part of the Catholic Church. When you go to confession, you do penance." ---------- bbrotman@tribune.com Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune |
