Thank you Joel, that is a very thought provoking post.

In the busy world we live in, this post is probably some of the best advice one could give. It’s important to take a moment and breathe once in a while, and forgive.

Although I’d agree that you were shafted by your early church, judging by your words I’d say you’ve got what it takes to be a real Christian. Every good tree has a few rotten apples. Throw them out and move on.

Ok so Merl has me on an ancient Greece kick. Thats right— I rely on MM (and several other choice bloggers) to provide structure to my post-college at-home schooling curriculum. (So in the Hogwarts of my mind MM is up there at the head table with the likes of Seth Godin, The Leo, various Pixel Corp wizards and a random sampling of TED lecturers. Oh yeah and Andy Ihnatko is standing in for that Hagrid fellow.)

Anyway I am deep into the Greek thing trying to grasp Aristotle’s take on storytelling in the Poetics— you know, the root of creativity, the power of words, the nature of emotions— all that jive. So I’ve been chewing on this Katharsis idea and I got to say, it is sticking with me way more than the Buddhist 4 noble truths and path to enlightenment stuff.

And here’s why- I don’t think that I truly believe in any linear processes, real or metaphysical. Its all a circle to me. One big busy-wait loop. So back to katharsis— can we just let go? or should we recognize that the deep dark stuff inside is self generating and that we periodically need to burn it off in a (non violent, socially acceptable and non-ozone gas emitting) barnfire of emotion?

Here are a few better takes without all the hoowey.

Peter Finch — we all cringe at the final sound bight but the build up is great and relevant today in spooky way:

Natalie Mains— The Dixie Chicks went from being non-existent to me to having a permanent spot on my ipod rotation after March 2003:

and for good measure- our beloved Declaration of Independence. We all know the preamble by heart before the end of 4th grade, but what about the concluding line of the DoL. In my book it is one of the finest bad ass lines of history, all the more so because it is stated through clenched teeth, tight lips without a scrap of extraneous emotion:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Back the f up King George. These colonial boys are about to drop some serious katharsis on your ass.

I had to register just to respond to this post.

I too am a recovering Christian. I’ve been clean for 13 months.

I think the thing I enjoy most about my new found agnosticism is the ability to do as you describe, forgive myself.

Somehow being a Christian never meant I could apply Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness to myself. That was for the other people, the bad people, it did not apply for the Christian inner circle. There we had to hold ourselves to a higher standard.

Maybe its just the fundamentalist heartland I live in but my communities strong work ethic combined with their deliberate shortsightedness always made feel guilty for not working harder even when I was working smarter. Why use 43 folders when your 365 system works just fine?

Over the last year I’ve been able to step back and see some of these pieces fall together. I now use Sundays to relax and breathe rather than pushing harder than ever to attend meetings and take part in a gospel show.

Thanks for the excellently worded reminder to let myself be human!

Paul Billett

I too am formerly religious. I too believe that it’s fine, preferable even, to pluck out the good concepts from my former faith, as well as those of others, and use them to my own ends. And I agree whole-heartedly that forgiveness is a very important tool. Though less extreme than email bankruptcy, it provides a similar interface for purging the slate. It’s not an easy tool to access, buried, as it seems, deep within the pull-down menus, but the re-boot is pretty good. Sorry for the tortured analogy… just wanted to say “yeah.”

Love when the right words come to us when we need them. This was perfect. Thanks!

I got a catharsis and a blog entry of my own out of it:

https://smithsoccasional.wordpress.com/2008/01/28/forgiveness/

You guys might want to check out The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality.

As an atheist since high school and former Catholic it sometimes concerns me when people “lose” their faith for emotional reasons. I think as humans we still have a strong spiritual component that needs to be acknowledged and nourished. The above book has been very enlightening for me this past year. It’s a quick, enjoyable read and may help to salve some of those old wounds as well.

You might be interested in some of the research (!) done by Dr. Fred Luskin of the Stanford Forgiveness Projects.

Yeah, Stanford University has projects researching forgiveness, how it works, how it affects people, and how to do it with maximum effectiveness.

Go figure.

Luskin has a couple mass market books out, but he's also got some more hard science stuff under his belt, too.

What is forgiveness? In my book it’s just choosing to not let something bother you anymore. That can be something you’ve done or something has done to you. If you’re religious you might get a bonus of something great when you die, if you’re not you’ve released a weight off your shoulders.

Everyone is a winner. Now if we could only choose to do stuff quicker…

My rule: Forgive others quickly, forgive yourself a little more slowly. This is based on the idea that being a little hard on yourself motivates you to be better, but abusing yourself is counter-productive.

There’s no sense associating forgiveness with religion. Forgiveness predates all currently-practiced religions — it’s a fundamental principle. Forgiveness is not permanent, either. You can’t screw people all week then get forgiven on Sunday. The goal is to be better, so you have to forgive yourself less.

In fact, I’d say many Christians are too quick to claim they’ve been forgiven. If you work at being a good person, and occasionally fail, you deserve forgiveness, but if you perpetually abuse people, you need to re-earn trust. Once others forgive you, and trust you, then you have permission to forgive yourself. Otherwise, it’s hollow.

How do you rise above making mistakes with people? Apologize. Recognize what you did wrong and acknowledge it. Then don’t repeat the mistake.

You’re on the right track… away from ‘programmed’ ethics and towards taking personal responsibility for who you are. Keep up the good work, it’s hard, but your a better person for the effort.

I guess that I am a minority on this one, as I was raised in faith and I still practice it (RC btw..ntim).

Still I go back to Aristotle. Why? Well for me the context for any faith is the narrative. In my view my own church, and by church I mean all of it- from the stained glass to the sacraments to the creed are just a vessel for a narrative— a songline if you will, that describes the human condition. Mostly these narratives are remarkably consistent with Aristotle’s views on the structure of stories and the map of human emotions. The Christ narrative from Bethlehem manger to Gesemeny is essentially a full tragedy- not “story with sad ending” tragedy but “narrative with full cycle of human emotions ending with Katharsis” tragedy.

I recognize similar narratives in other faiths so for me any religion is an archetype or meme that humans create (or discover) to cope with self reflection. Its the container for the narrative. Religion (as institution) seem to fail or to have bizarrely negative impacts when it departs from the narrative and becomes a list of actionable items (as in— persecute gays, strap bombs to bodies, engage in any kind of neoconservative geopolitical policy).

Thats were the Poetics gets me— Aristotle takes all of these emotions and strings them together like a line of code and then loops them- infinitely. Running this loop is how he defines the human experience. This is the antithesis of Buddhism as I understand it- no slow steady process of letting go of emotions. So yes forgiveness for instance is good, but not in and of itself- it’s a link along Katharsis string of the loop.

What I get out of Joel’s piece is that we should make sure we are running our full loop of human emotions and not getting stuck on one little bit. I know thats not what he said, but its my take.

Now I am going to crawl back into my cave on the island of Patmos, before Merl yanks me from this thread.

Great Article, Joel!

I have some issues similar to you.

Just a note of caution though: I was friends with a guy in school who was the opposite extreme from your original state, so much so that he turned out to be rather immoral/amoral. He routinely forgave himself completely for everything, even if the crowds he’d transgressed against never did.

“bomb shelter doable”??

wow. you’re one heck of a classy guy, aren’t you.

i read an excerpt of your post on lifehacker, and i was impressed, so i came here to read the rest of it.

you completely blew any credibility or gravitas you may have had with that comment.

women read this blog too. women can even outprogram you with one hand tied behind their back.

Someone told me not to join a perfect church because I’d ruin it. I realized they’re all full of sinners and hypocrites - and I fit right in. We aren’t called ‘Churchians’, we’re called Christians. He is my goal. I’m hoping to live my life as honey attracts flies vs. vinegar repels. Christ won’t disappoint you, people will.

This thread too caught my eye, as it seems to be a popular one. But as I read through it and the responses, I think we have made a grave error, Christianity is being misrepresented. "Christians" has become such a watered down word in our culture we've missed its essence. We've missed what it really means to fit under the label of Christian. Please, I encourage you, in all fairness to Christianity, take a minute and listen to this.

As Joel is referring to somebody’s “fiance” not “fiancée”, he’s obviously not making offensive comments toward women (who would be someone’s fiancée), but rather he’s making a comment about a fellow man (a fiance). That assumes, of course, that Joel on 43folders is really a guy IRL…and so forth.

64coyote, instead, reveals that s/he misses the point of forgiveness.

Fun post, btw, Joel!

It’s for dyin’.

Where do we think the idea of forgiveness comes from anyway?

We have offended a Holy God, and whether you’re Christian, Jewish, Atheist, Agnostic, Lapsed Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Churchian, Paul Washer or Democrat, when you die, you will stand before Him.

Why should He forgive you?

Maybe the panic attacks will lessen (maybe not go away… remember Job?) when you can answer that question.

I’m a Christian Quaker, but lately I’ve found most useful the writings of the Buddhist Pema Chodron, especially The Places That Scare You and When Things Fall Apart. She talks about maitri, compassion for oneself, and the utility of sticking close to the edge, that is, staying with feelings like you’re talking about without attending to the thoughts your mind tries to throw up about them. That edge is where growth happens.

I suffer from similar feelings, perhaps not so intense, and her advice has helped immensely. I also remind myself of what grace is all about: God’s love doesn’t depend on one’s performance. If it did, it wouldn’t be grace. The core of grace is the fact that one is already forgiven.

Oh, and I have to say that IMO the idea that Christianity is not for living but for dying is vicious nonsense. Jesus said that he came that we might have life more abundantly.

Keep up the good work. You’re definitely on the right track.

I'm sorry that your childhood experience with church was screwed up. But you're right about Jesus being unique among his contemporaries for preaching forgiveness. At least, that's what my biblical scholar roommate from grad school tells me.

But your message about self-forgiveness is universal. It reminds me of two things: Neil Fiore's book on procrastination (recommended to me on these very pages), in which he says for many people procrastination is a coping mechanism for low self-esteem, and a book I read to my daughter called Don't Feed the Monster on Tuesday. Drop by a bookstore and give that one a look.

Promising not to beat yourself up is a big step in understanding what makes your "engine" run. Once you know that, you can tweak that sucker out like only you know how.

Nice that you’re no longer worshipping something that doesn’t exist.

But you’ll find something else, I’m sure. My guess is that it’ll be Deepok Chopra and similar feel-good quantum flapdoodle. The post about your wife’s tai chi practice is inauspicious in that regard.

Some people just are that way. They NEED something like this in their lives, for some inexplicable reason. Maybe it’s even genetic.

Embrace the meditation beads.

/agree

Thanks for reminding me of the principle. I wondered why I was feeling so angry lately. :-)