The conversation on CRC-Voices has been especially helpful.

The conversation started with David Snapper, CRC pastor in Washington State who has developed a forgiveness workshop. He sites four levels of hurt. The language on Voices also in process and I think helpfully tweaked by Pete VanderBeek

1. Immediate hurt or common (similar but opposite to common grace) hurt: hurts that happen through no obvious direct agent or necessarily clear reason.

2. Considered hurt: hurt which is intentional. Someone in a face to face relationship obviously intended to do harm. This is a slippery slope already, however, because it presumes to know the motivation of another. That’s always tricky.

Key to this whole scheme is our sense of self and our sense of other selves and how we hold them in our heart or judge them to be.

3. Collateral Hurt: David calls this “synthetic hurt” because it involves two objects. You don’t have a face to face personal relationship with the agent of your harm, and the harm is more general than Hurt 2. An example with a politician.  Politician goes to DC and takes away the clergy housing tax situation. I am financially hurt by this move. (I like my entitlement!). In my mind this politician has hurt me. The thing to watch in this is my regard for the politician. I now count him to be an enemy. A 1st person considered enemy is someone I regard as having hurt me. I now wish for evil for this person. I wish for a scandal to drive them from office. I want them gone. I want them to feel pain. I want them to stop. In the process too I want to be vindicated, restored, declared as righteous, beautiful, exalted over my enemy.

4 Allergic Hurt:  (as I understand it) the regard I held in point 3 towards specific persons takes up residence. David calls hurt 4 Un-Real hurt. My regard is no longer a sniper, it is a bomb. I start feeling hurt broadly and making enemies categorically. Why is this so destructive, because such a person suddenly becomes hostile, reactive, and if they get a chance at power they will start to bring their brand of righteousness to the world. In that process people will be hurt. This person has insured the destruction of their own self. Hurt 4 is experienced as hell and will become so in time (again, see CS Lewis’ the Great Divorce). This person can’t be forgiven because they don’t know what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is about stopping the creation of enemies with respect to my regard.

I believe (correct me if I’m wrong http://biology.about.com/od/anatomy/p/Amygdala.htm ) part of the role of the amygdala in the brain is to protect the person. When some trauma (hurt) has happened we learn to be weary of this. People who lived through a war might fall to the floor if a truck backfires. A dog who is struck by a stick repeatedly by a man with a beard now fears all men with beards.

In forgiveness we need to learn a new trick.

1. I must continue to recognize the validity of the amygdala in my brain to make me weary of a person or a behavior because my experience has taught me that these things are unsafe. I must listen to my amygdala.
2. I must no longer be subject to my amygdala. I may need to remove myself. I may need to no longer see a person or participate in a type of event, but I must release myself from the regard about the motives, characters and persons involved. Holding onto that simply means that I will continue to be re-wounded and re-injured by other things passing by. (Look at the recovery process that Pete has learned much about. Here it is.)

If I fail to master my amygdala and if I am given power, I may well harm myself and others. It must stop with me. That is why I must forgive, while still having an amygdala. pvk