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Caroljean Kores Rodesch CICSW.
Family Services
300 Crooks
Green Bay. WI 54301
(920) 436-6800
Historically it was necessary to forgive because survival depended upon the family unit staying together and the community remaining supportive. In current times forgiveness is optional and perhaps even unpopular. Husbands and wives leave each other, parents abandon children, children leave home and relatives need not speak to each other. Modern rife has made it possible for people to sever even their most Intimate relationships and simply leave behind those closest to them whom they have injured. Media, television, popular movies and songs portray getting even, paybacks or staying angry. The individual who wants to forgive may be perceived as a wimp or chicken and lose face. It has become much harder to forgive or ask forgiveness.
The injury received at the hands of a stranger is apt to create crisis or trauma but is more understandable and forgivable than the injury created by one who is intimate or loved. This has
some times been referred to as "Forgiving the Unforgivable"' and is infinitely harder to do. Forgiveness may be of value to the injurer but it is of even greater value to the victim in moving on with life.
The choice not to forgive, may stunt all future growth and leave the injured a permanent victim. Like most journeys, the journey of forgiveness is not always transactional . It can be solitary, is always painful and a choice..
This presentation explores a transactional model of forgiveness, solitary forgiveness and the benefits that evolve. It also asks some interesting questions: can one forgive by e mall, does it need face to face, must an injurer be forgiven and the apology be accepted, what is different in a relationship post forgiveness?
Whatever the impact of modern society and media on forgiveness, a world with no forgiveness is too terrible to contemplate and its inhabitants faced with monsters.