Forgiveness: Freed to Love

By Christine Betz Hall. Pendle Hill Pamphlets (number 480), 2023. 47 pages. $7.50/pamphlet or eBook.

Forgiving more leads to loving more. We all have emotional injuries, which we carefully feed and nurse. The longer we harbor them, the longer they will burden us and prevent our souls from growing. Christine Betz Hall’s Forgiveness: Freed to Love is a short, remedy-packed guide full of ways to let them go. First offered as a plenary presentation to the Northwest Quarter of North Pacific Yearly Meeting in 2022, the essay now has new life as a Pendle Hill pamphlet, able to reach many more Friends seeking help or wisdom on the road to forgiveness. Betz Hall’s more than 15 years of experience working as a spiritual director, facilitator, and companion comes through on every page.

In this pamphlet, she makes clear that forgiveness is our job to do, and it doesn’t involve “forgetting” or ignoring. In my decades as a chaplain in treatment centers, hospices, and prisons, I have found that not forgiving is often foremost among the blocks on the way to wholeness and love. This is not new insight. Jesus pointed out that it is a lifelong process. Isaac Penington wrote about it in 1667: “Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another.” If we wait for the other person to apologize or initiate healing, we often end up bearing that burden our whole lives. In that case, we are the ones who suffer. Betz Hall makes this most clear when she cites writer Anne Lamott: “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”

There are situations, Betz Hall observes, when reality itself is a player in the forgiveness process. She points to culture war examples around vaccination and between ethnic groups. She warns against any shallow self-forgiveness about the harm one’s race or gender has historically perpetuated through the centuries.

In my own life, one of the biggest challenges for me was dealing with my love–hate feelings toward my mother. I didn’t want her to die until I could process my feelings. So when Mom’s health declined, I moved to be nearby and visit her regularly. Being able to talk with her daily enabled me to better understand her and her tendencies. Her behavior didn’t change any, but as my understanding grew, I could view our relationship from her perspective, even though it caused me pain. So, over three years, I came to forgive her, and I credit my reaching out and listening as a big factor in finding that peace. 

Most people have some unfinished spiritual work to do before they die, in order to feel clear. Sometimes a clearness committee can help, but the process needs to start and stay primarily within oneself. It will likely be difficult. Forgiveness: Freed to Love can be a valuable tool along the way. What forgiveness work and love remains in your life?

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Jon Shafer is active in Penn Valley Meeting in Kansas City, Mo., and American Friends Service Committee. He has a master of ministry from Earlham School of Religion; was a board-certified chaplain; and worked in addictions treatment, nursing homes, prisons, and hospices. Now retired, he continues to write, read, and love where he lives in Kansas City with his wife.