When You Aren’t Ready to Forgive

Last week, people throughout the world watched with horror as the story unfolded of an unspeakable crime in Charleston, South Carolina. We also watched as the family members of the victims stood up and did something unimaginably courageous: They forgave.

I am not going to write about forgiveness in this post. Everyone reading this already knows the power of forgiveness: It has been written about hundreds of times. What I am going to write about instead is what we can do when we aren’t ready to forgive.

I do not know how I would forgive someone who killed a person I loved. Forgiveness is not something I do well or easily. This is not only true when I have been gravely injured or betrayed. It is also true for minor injuries—a hurtful comment from a friend, a slight by a coworker. I do not spend my nights tossing and turning with rage or waste my time childishly plotting revenge, but it takes me a very long time to come to the point where I can utter the words I forgive.

So what can we do when we aren’t ready to forgive? Long ago, I learned that I could deal with my anger not by ignoring it, fighting it, or pretending it wasn’t there, but by using it. Anger is energy. Energy can be put to use.

What can you do with your anger? Many things:

Act. Speak out.Volunteer. Donate. Debate. Listen. Protest.

Create. Make art. Write poems. Tell stories. Perform.

For me, the best thing to do with anger is to transform it into words. My stories often come out of old hurts and resentments, even rage.

I am far from the only writer who has written from anger. Pat Conroy, Alice Walker, Stephen King, and many others have used anger as a source of energy. The narrator of Eric Bogosian’s Perforated Heart writes, “Isn’t anger the basis for all great art?” I wouldn’t go that far, but I would say it’s the basis for some great art (and some mediocre art as well.)

In my book Writing as a Sacred Path, I offer this:

To use anger as [some] writers have, to create rather than destroy, we need to reshape it. We need to take its intense, uncontrollable, molten metal and hammer it into a bright, sure sword.

I don’t see this gleaming sword as an instrument for killing. I see it as a tool for cutting away the damage to our souls and our society.

So that is what I am doing now. There is much in my life—and in the world—that I am not ready to forgive, but that doesn’t mean I’m letting anger control me. Instead, I’m transforming it into words, using it on the page, shaping it into stories.

How do you use anger? What do you do when you aren’t yet ready to forgive?

Hi! I’m Jill. Get my free weekly strategies here. Download my free ebooklet Calling Up the Writer Within: A Short Guide to Writing at 50 & Beyond.

Photo credit: © Sergey Rogovets | Dreamstime.com