I understand the need to forgive, especially as I study the effects of positive and negative feelings/energy. I looked at the word “forgive,” and I realized that it’s an odd word. What does it really mean “to forgive” someone?

“Forgive” is an old English word, maybe 14th century:

forgive (v.):  Old English forgiefan “give, grant, allow; remit (a debt), pardon (an offense),” also “give up” and “give in marriage”(word origins)

Webster’s Dictionary of 1828:

The original and proper phrase is to forgive the offense, to send it away, to reject it, that is, not to impute it, [put it to] the offender. (Websters 1828 Dictionary)

Webster’s Dictionary today, 2015:

to stop feeling anger toward (someone who has done something wrong) : to stop blaming (someone)

: to stop feeling anger about (something) : to forgive someone for (something wrong)

: to stop requiring payment of (money that is owed) (Merriam Webster, 2015)

Dr. Andrew Weil suggests that we owe it to our own health to forgive:

Forgiveness is beneficial not only mentally but physically as well. People who forgive tend to be less angry, depressed, stressed out and anxious, and have lower blood pressure and heart rates than those who hold grudges. If you tend to have a hard time letting go of a grievance, consider that forgiveness does not mean you have to forget an incident, but rather that you can place a limit on how it affects you and your relationship with another, and that you benefit from the process as much as the person with whom you have the grudge. (Dr. Andrew Weil)

C. S. Lewis explains that there is a difference between the act of forgiving and the act of excusing:

If you had a perfect excuse, you would not need forgiveness…When it comes to a question of our forgiving other people, it is partly the same and partly different. It is the same because, here also forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. (This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart – every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) C.S. Lewis

Dennis Prager — I’ve heard him say, “why would you forgive someone who has not asked for forgiveness?” Actually, Dennis has a video that explains this better. You can forgive someone who has not asked for forgiveness, but he agrees with Dr. Stephen Marmer, who calls this “release.” It’s actually an interesting way to categorize forgiveness into three types:

Exoneration — use this when it was just an accident,the person didn’t  really understand, or the person truly repented and asked for forgiveness

Forbearance —  use this when the person doesn’t really care or makes a partial apology and the relationship still matters to you

Release — use this when the person doesn’t offer any apology and does not care – examples are adult survivors of child abuse, business people who have been cheated by their partners, or friends or relatives who have betrayed one another.

I think it helps to enlarge upon the word “forgiveness” in these categories. If you think about it, within the teachings of the LDS church and Christianity, you must ask the Lord for forgiveness (and sometimes even the church through its leaders. In fact, you may not get to serve a mission if you broke a commandment, even if you repented, and were forgiven, so go figure that one.)

How does it affect you when you forgive someone? (Or one of the three forms of forgiveness — exonerate, forbear, release.)

To “forgive” is to cut the rope that tethers you to that offense. I can visualize that. And I feel the cord holding me down when I can’t let go. But cutting the cord is a skill that requires great strength and perhaps experience. As long as you hold a grudge, you’re connected to that grievance (be it small or great.) And it will pull you down. Yea, in a way, it’s a bummer that you have to deal with something you did not create, but such is life.

Some theories suggest that when you hold on to grievances and offenses, you hang on to negative energy, and it makes you sick. And moody and negative. Forgiveness has something in common with repentance.

Our scriptures are full of things about forgiveness — forgive to be forgiven, and yet I wonder what God really means by that (since our scriptures have been translated into many languages and interpreted.) You know, it would be nice if God explained what He meant, the process, the feeling of forgiveness. In the church, they try to teach you all the steps, and they wrap repentance into it as well, and atonement, and it is all very messy.

Yet, I believe that a savior has suffered for all the wrongs, and through some process, he forgives me when I accept Him. See, even there, it is requisite that I do something. As Hugh Nibley expounds, “we can forgive, and we can repent.”

Perhaps, when the scriptures talk about how we must forgive, what it means, is that we must let it go, cut the cord that binds us down because God is in charge of all that repentance, forgiveness, atonement stuff. We can’t really wrap our minds around how it all works. We ask God to “forgive our trespasses“ as we forgive those that trespass against us.

Remember when the Israelites went up to the temple mount in Jerusalem, they depended on the High Priest to absolve them of their sins, even those they were unaware of. In fact, the High Priest put his hands on a goat, confessing his people’s sins, and sent the goat out into the wilderness as the scapegoat.

So, search your heart. Repent. And as for me, I’m going to send the offense away — reject it. Forgive, Grant, and Exoneration, or a Forbearance, or a Release. I will stop feeling anger and resentment about something and someone. Try it. Think about something you need to let go of. Cut the cord. Feel joy. Get rid of the negative energy. Let the light of Christ flow freely into your heart. Somehow, He works it all out.

Even in the toughest category — “Release” can apply.

Release does something that is critically important: it allows you to let go of the burden, the “silent tax” that is weighing you down and eating away at your chance for happiness. If you do not release the pain and anger and move past dwelling on old hurts and betrayals, you will be allowing the ones who hurt you to live, rent free, in your mind, reliving forever the persecution that the original incident started.  (Dr. Stephen Marmer):

 

 

 

Post updated, originally published Jan. 1, 2015. My friend Phyllis in the comments, has since passed away.