reflections on one year: forgiveness means to wish you well

In this series

It’s taken me just as long to read my story as it took to write it, and the last parts were written shortly after attending a Blue Christmas service which is happening tonight. I guess no one is really holding me to a one-year window, but at the same time I really want to get this done — at least make an effort — so these reflections aren’t prolonged unnecessarily.

In my processing so far, I’ve had to separate the congregation from the elders who made all the decisions. It’s probably not a perfect separation, but I can’t really blame the congregation; I don’t think they knew what was before them. And I wasn’t angry with the congregation; I was mourning them. Very few of them had grown up actively engaging in presbyterian polity (even if they grew up in presbyterian churches). Cultural norms not to stir the pot did not help the congregation find their voice to speak up. Their knowledge of the situation was controlled by the elders, and any information which would have given them more agency was withheld or action was discouraged in an atmosphere of fear/control.

In the end, while I felt some disappointment in the congregation for how things ended, I’ve since set myself to reflect upon them with gratitude. I’ve struggled to do the same with the elders. What can I say? Thank you for teaching me the depths of despair and bitterness?

I recall in the immediate months after I left that I admitted to someone that a part of me just wanted the church to fail just so I could feel vindicated. Not my brightest moment, but it was still in me somewhere… this desire to be proved right… this need to have my hurts validated. I still believe the elders ultimately made the wrong choice; time hasn’t changed that… But I’m slowly coming to realize I can’t punish them forever even if (or especially if) that punishment is only in my head. There’s a kind of self-serving bitterness that feels good to keep alive but ultimately might end up killing me.

Recently I was listening to Esau McCaulley talk about forgiveness for his father. His memoir, How Far to the Promised Land, starts with him being asked to give the eulogy for his father, a man who had caused much hurt and pain in his life. He describes his father as verbally and physically abusive. In this recent conversation regarding forgiveness, McCaulley said of his father,

There was a part of me that didn’t want him to change, because as long as he stayed the way he was, it justified my disdain for him. The longer he stayed cruel, I could be angry with him. And I realized that if he changed, that would actually force me to change my relationship with him as well. And so forgiveness wasn’t the process of forgiving him for the things that he did; that wasn’t it, right? Forgiveness was for me to say, “I want you to become a better person for your own flourishing even if that makes it hard for me.” In other words, forgiveness was for me to wish him well.

I replayed that section several times because it sounded so much like how I was holding the elders of King’s Cross in contempt.

I had to admit that a significant part of me needed to keep the elders in this caricature of fear-driven, self-preserving, closed-minded leaders in order for me to maintain this holding pattern of anger for what they did. I haven’t gotten over it. But I want to. I want to wish them well. Were they ill-equipped for their roles as elders at the time? Yes. But do I wish that they stay ill-equipped forever? For the sake of the church and for their own flourishing, No.

But to be honest, I’m not there yet. I can write this here now, but I’m not sure what will happen if I ever run into them on the street. It’s not like they’ve ever reached out or anything in the past year and there’s no indication that that will change in the near future so maybe it’s not something I need to worry about anytime soon. But I’d like my heart toward them not to be one that needs them to stay in their broken state.

I want to believe that they’re moving toward flourishing, not just for them, but for the church. I want to believe that the same God who stayed with me and helped me break from a fundamentalist posture toward others will also be with the elders and nudge the church the wholeness. I want to believe that God will help them grow in love toward others even when I’m not there to witness the process.

To the elders, I hope you’re not the same as when we last spoke (yes, even the one I still see but we never broach topics regarding the church). I have no indications of any changes but I have to trust that God is working in ways I can’t see or sense. Maybe one day we’ll talk again about life and faith without this chasm between us. Until then, and until my heart heals enough to genuinely wish it, I [want to] wish you well.