Forgiveness is that kind of word that comes so effortlessly off the lips but is agonizingly difficult to perform. We forgive because it will improve us, because it will liberate us from wrath, because we should. But what forgiveness can occur if the pain of remembrance still lingers? Do we forgive and forget, or is forgetting the unspoken ground on which forgiveness occurs?
On the surface, it would seem that one has to forget in order to forgive. Memory makes wounds fresh; each memory is a re-opening of the wound. If the hurt is seared into our memory, can we ever really release the anger or hurt associated with it? In this instance, forgiveness seems on the face of it almost mandatory, that is, as if forgetting what occurred allows forgiveness to gain traction. This is the reason why individuals tend to advise one another to “forgive and forget” like twin brothers.
Forgetting is dangerous as well. To forget too much is to devalue the significance of what has occurred, to defy the reality of suffering. Forgetting will even let injustice cycle back in some cases. Victims of abuse who forget what was done to them are certain to get caught again, and nations who forget what they have done will most certainly repeat the error. Forgiveness, when grounded in forgetting, is empty, shallow, and even false.
On the contrary, remembering does not necessarily mean that we are in servitude. Memory does not have to be militarized in order for it to be endured. Forgiveness may not be identical to forgetting, but a change in the endurance of memory. Rather than allowing it to fuel anger and revenge, we redefine it, enduring it in the broader context of life. The injustice is gone, but without power to keep us in servitude.
This isn’t easy. “Forgive and forget” is a form of strength that steals your wind. It is a matter of: “I am not going to forget what you did, but I am not going to let it contaminate me any longer.” Forgiveness in this sense is less about erasing the slate and more about building the future. Forgetting may be a blessing, but forgiveness without forgetting is maybe the deeper, more subversive thing.
There is incoherence here, however. There are wounds so foul that memory itself is indecent. For some people, forgetting, or blunting the edge of memory at least, is the only way in which forgiveness can be considered. Perhaps that is why time is so often called upon as the great healer: not because time craves forgiveness, but because time dulls memory to the point that forgiveness at least becomes a theoretical possibility. Forgiveness is perhaps not always contingent on forgetting, but forgetting sometimes makes it possible.
Perhaps, then, forgiveness and forgetting are a measure and not a formula. Forgiving and unforgetting is dangerous, it destroys accountability. Forgiving and not forgetting is a burden, it instructs us to be bound to our hurts without letting them define us. Forgetting and remembering are each their share, depending on the depth of the wound and the tenacity of the heart.
Is forgetting, then, forgiveness? No. But forgetting, at least a relaxation of memory, is sometimes forced to throw open its gates. Forgiveness, in short, is as much a question of transformation as of non-recall. It’s freedom or fury, the choice of one or the other, whether that freedom resides in the mercy of forgetting or the authority of recalling otherwise.