A Story of Forgiveness that’s Kicking My Ass

Nothing will eat your soul faster than unforgiveness. I’ve never met a miserable person, including myself at times, that didn’t hold multiple things against multiple people.

But there are some who will have none of it, regardless of the circumstances.

“I’m going back to the U.S. with a kiss on my cheek from a former Nazi.”

in 1944 Eva and Miriam Mozes along with their mother, father, and two other sisters climbed aboard a cattle car and were transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Mom, Dad, and two sisters were immediately dispatched while the 10 year old twins, Miriam and Eva were chosen to participate in Dr. Josef Mengele’s infamous medical experiments.

Eva was beaten close to death multiple times, injected with all manner of experimental things, and soon became gravely ill. It was hoped that she would die so that post-mortem comparative studies might be performed on herself and her twin. Had she died, her sister would have been murdered. Somehow they both survived.

Seventy years later, Eva was asked to testify against Oskar Groening, a German SS Officer posted at Auschwitz at the time of her internment – at the time 93 and charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder. If there’s anyone who has a right to hate this guy, seek revenge, live in unforgiveness, it’s this lady.

She went the other way.

How to Forgive Someone Who Doesn’t Deserve it

My forgiveness … has nothing to do with the perpetrator, has nothing to do with any religion, it is my act of self-healing, self-liberation and self-empowerment. I had no power over my life up to the time that I discovered that I could forgive, and I still do not understand why people think it’s wrong. (from NPR “‘It’s For You to Know that You Forgive’ says Holocaust Survivor”)

After her testimony she approached Groening. They talked, embraced, she asked if he was doing OK, then begged him to find a voice within contemporary Neo-Nazi groups – to talk from a first-hand perspective about the importance of all people.

That was her revenge.

In my almost 50 years of life I’ve been lied to, laughed at, beaten, betrayed, robbed, humiliated, etc., but nothing in my life compares to what this woman endured and forgave. If someone like Eva Kor can forgive, who now suffers from cancer compliments of Dr. Mengele, I have to believe that it’s within my power to forgive whatever might fall in my lap.

But it ain’t easy. We’ll always be scratching our heads wondering, “how do you forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it?”

Forgiveness is painful. It forces me to remember the infraction and the hurt it caused. It’s WAY easier to stay pissed off, play the victim, talk about the perpetrator behind their back, live in anger, etc. And unforgiveness feels good. It allows me to imagine that I’m “right” and they’re “wrong,” or better, I’m “good” and they’re “bad.” It’s a wonderful salve for a hurting soul and a very popular method for living a life that truly sucks.

It also feels like a grave injustice to let something go unpunished. But don’t get me wrong, forgiveness doesn’t mean we forget what happened, or make excuses for people. We can and should confront, ask for apologies, even mete out consequences. But in those frequent cases where we don’t get the appropriate response, we’ll have to forgive.

If we don’t, we’ll soon learn that the greatest injustice of unforgiveness is the prison that it places us in. We surrender so much of ourselves – our happiness, peace, hope, etc. – so that we might hang on to the evil that was perpetrated against us.

That’s what Eva Kor refused to do, and left me without excuse.

Why Marginalizing Others Doesn’t Work

You don’t just wake up one morning feeling shame, someone has to give it to you

You can do it in the privacy of your own mind and it will very quickly destroy your ability to be happy. Marginalizing happens when we consider someone, or a group of someones, to be lower than us – we diminish their value as people…

…and it feels wonderful.

The Fine Art of Marginalizing People

To do this, you’ll need three things in your toolbox that most people have readily available.

First, you’ll need to question your own value.

This is the hallmark of depression – feeling like you never measure up, like you have to always be doing more – one tiny slip and the world will know how crappy you are. Most people deal with this by finding some arena where they might perform – work, physical appearance, money, things, influential friends – as long as these things are in play, self-value is seldom questioned.

Take these away and a very shaky self-image emerges.

I have a friend who always tells me about how much he appreciates himself, but spends a ton of time ripping a certain group of people. What he loves is that he’s a very responsible person – what he hates is people who are irresponsible.

He’s a young guy and will live like this for awhile, but it will require a ton of emotional energy. Most guys wear out around mid-life, try like hell to find the self that was lost (usually with a Harley and a ton of alcohol), then give up and get depressed.

Second, you’ll need to hold something close to your heart that you consider to be disgusting, deplorable, unjust, gross, unsightly, etc – a behavior, a “look,” a philosophy, a cause, an orientation – something that, when you see someone else doing it, makes you cringe, and it has to be something you don’t do, at least not in public.

What I’ve found is that this thing that we hate usually reminds us of ourselves. My friend with the responsibility issues was raised with a lot of shame surrounding responsibility – there’s a mountain of unresolved hurt in that guy’s heart and it’s led him to believe that the only people with true value are the ones who are truly responsible – and that he’s a piece of junk every time he drops a ball.

Third, you’ll need to have been a victim of marginalizing at some point in your past.

Most of us have been there – this is a popular thing to do to people, especially to kids. We want our kids to a) not be completely insane and b) have great lives – so we push them, frequently using shame which a) is one of the best motivators ever and b) sends the very clear message “you’re only valuable if you ______.”

do your homework
get good grades
stay in shape
make lots of money
lead something
behave
look good
make me look good

Most of us are raised believing that we’re only valuable under certain conditions. If those conditions are broken, we’ll feel shame which, regardless of what you believe about human origin, is something humanity was never designed to deal with.

Shame drives all sorts of miserable behavior – addiction, destruction, bad grades, bad relationships, bad attitudes – but you don’t just wake up one morning feeling shame, someone has to give it to you.

How you look at people can make you miserable

I’m going to throw out something that you may have never heard before. It will sound strange at first, it did to me, but I want to invite you to let this sink in for a bit before you do anything with it.

How you view people determines your ability to be happy

If you look at humanity in general and see something amazing, you have a better chance at happiness than you do if you ascribe value to people under more conditional terms.

If the only people who are valuable to you are the people who add value to your life, or the people you look up to, or the people who perform well, your happiness will be just as conditional.

When we were kids, most of us thought this way – that all people are essentially good, and we were happy. As we grew up we were taught to place conditions on the value of others – to find joy in looking down on people – which somehow resulted in our placing conditions on our own value. It seems that the older we get, the harder it is to be at peace.

Give it a shot – spend a day or two looking past the blemishes to see the real beauty of people (and leave some comments – I’d love to hear your stories).

When the impulse comes upon you to judge someone, strip someone of their value, marginalize someone, resist – understand that the impulse comes from something inside you that has nothing to do with the other person.

Material Possessions, Retail Therapy, Credit Cards, and Oh My God where’s my Happiness

Retail therapy (“I’m feeling empty inside, I deserve to go out and spend some money”) feels great, one of the most immediate ways to shake whatever unsavory thing you’re dealing with in the moment. It’s a popular method, requiring no skill or experience, and in most cases no money. If you have a credit card, even better. You get to spend money you can’t really pay back, but you don’t have to think about all of that – just make your minimum payment each month and you’re good to go.

Most purchases I’ve made really did change my life, especially the big ones. A few years ago my wife and I made the decision to buy a house. Our third adoption had just gone through and we were feeling the need to expand our territory a bit. There was a new house being built a block away from Elaine’s work that she had frequently passed while walking on her breaks. We looked into it, got really excited, and made our first spontaneous purchase together. It would be the biggest and nicest house I’ve ever lived in.

Moving is hell for me – the details, the physical labor, everything’s a mess and unsettled, the kids don’t know what’s going on – I couldn’t wait to get the old house sold and everything in place in the new. Once we settled in, I felt like I was living in paradise. I remember thinking on multiple occasions that it felt like staying in a luxury hotel – like we were on some kind of vacation. My life had truly been changed – for about six months.

Sadly, that feeling ended and life returned to normal, except for the fact that our house was a bit larger and we had geographically shifted. The life we had before our life changing purchase had returned, like an old tired dog that you just can’t get rid of. It’s been like that for all my purchases, although I still struggle to believe it. These things do change our lives, for a very short period, then life returns, unaffected. Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with buying things, but plenty wrong with the belief that they’ll significantly alter our lives.

But that’s what we believe. We’re up to our ears in debt due in large part to our faith in things and experiences – and we owe it all to our little plastic collaborators, waiting anxiously in our wallets. Credit cards, when they first came out, were popular because of their convenience, and the tech was cool. But back then everyone approached debt with some caution, even with open lines of credit.

Things have changed.

Now, our credit cards allow us to secretly borrow at point of purchase, without anyone truly knowing how bad our situation is – with the exception of our credit card company – they’re cheering us on – that’s how they make big $$$.

Retail Therapy Happiness

For most of us, Retail Therapy is really Debt Therapy. We feel empty, or useless, shamed, angry, lonely – or some combination of sadness – and we salve it all by spending money we don’t have, adding to the mountain of $$ we’ll be hard-pressed to pay back. We add a stressor to our lives that will be with us for a very long time, and we forfeit a significant chunk of our freedom.

Ultimately, Retail therapy will bring change to your life. Most would agree however that it’s not the kind of change you’re looking for – the search for retail therapy happiness will always end in ruin. Like most things that make us miserable, it’s a quick fix for a bigger problem, one that requires some deeper thinking. But when we’re worried about our revolving-debt-related-money stress, we usually don’t have head space for much else.

Digging out of stupid debt is really hard. I had to marry someone who would have none of it – Elaine sees most debt as completely inexcusable. I quickly said goodbye to my quest for retail therapy happiness, and changed my beliefs about the power of things and experiences. I’m not sure I could’ve done it without someone close, someone who really cared, helping me to understand how bad things had gotten.

But to be honest, in the back of my mind, I still struggle to understand what truly matters in this life. I’m surrounded by things I don’t have, and constantly fighting the urge to better my life with them.