By Evelyne O'Callaghan Burkhard
Southern Ireland’s Office of Reconciliation Ministries Evelyn O’Callaghan Burkhard spoke in Glendora two years ago. Her experiences as a compassionate nurse in both the killing fields of Cambodia and Rwanda means that when she speaks we listen. Here are excerpts from her talks on healing hurts that she gives quite often, most recently at the Detroit ORM Biennial Conference – Ed.)
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has said often that there is no true reconciliation without forgiveness. This is so true and there is a man who knows what he is talking about.
(Ed. Note – At a crucial conference in Rustenburg, South Africa in 1990, a meeting of 230 church leaders from 80 denominations effectively laid the groundwork for the removal of apartheid in that troubled region. Dutch Reformed theologian, Professor Willie Jonker stood up and said to Bishop Tutu and his associates, “I confess before you and the Lord, not only my own sin and guilt, and my personal responsibility for the wrongs that have been done to you…but vicariously I dare also to do that in the name of the Afrikaans people as a whole.” To this Tutu replied; “I believe I certainly stand under pressure of God’s Holy Spirit to say that…when that confession is made, then those of us who have been wronged must say, ‘We forgive you…’”)
Today I want to go further. There is no forgiveness without the offended party grieving their losses and there is no proper grieving without going through emotional pain. Physical pain is acceptable. We are rightly allowed to express feelings and complaints. However, emotional pain is often invisible and denied. Pain of whatever kind mobilizes all our attention and our senses. This is no time for counselors to say, “Snap out of it” or “Get over it.” We cannot register such advice to hurting people. This is a time to be good listeners, not Job’s comforters. When Job’s friends first showed up after his colossal tragedies they said nothing for seven days (Job 2:13). That is the best thing they could have done. It all went downhill after that.
Between ages 10 and 18 I was dealing with parents who separated. I put my emotional pain in a drawer for many years. To all outer appearances I had forgotten it but the reality was not so. It was fuel for my resentments against my parents and the world. It allowed me to be angry and rebellious, or so I thought. But I was wrong. In 1987 God met me as Father and I had to think of my earthly father. I realized that if God could accept me as I was he could accept everyone else as well – including my father. Who was I to decide that anyone was not worthy to be loved?
But I had to work through my own feelings at the time just like for anyone in emotional pain there will be feelings to work though – feelings of anger, fear, injustice, rejection, etc. Without acknowledging what is causing the trouble we often vent our frustrations on someone else or we concoct our own distorted story of what has happened to us. Those distorted feelings often get passed on to someone else or to the next generation. Better to acknowledge the pain before trying to be forgiving. This often takes the help of a skilled or very shrewd and loving counselor.
The victim has to eventually let go of the pain in order to be able to extend forgiveness. I read the proper formula in Trevor Chandler’s book The Power and Problem of Forgiveness. Forgiveness he defines as the dismissing of displeasure or resentment from the heart of the one offended. This can be only be done over time once the true source of pain is identified. After being allowed to talk truthfully about what went wrong – to let out the pain – the victim can then be encouraged to extend forgiveness, to offer pardon – the passing over of the justly deserved penalty. Only then can a new interpersonal contract be established for future relationships, a new equilibrium.
Most of our better novels, movies, dramas deal with this process because it is the stuff of life. We must allow time to grieve properly when there have been legitimate hurts or real reconciliation can never be achieved. True and proper healing can never be rushed. This is one reason that kindly patience is one of the qualities of God’s character.