The Fragrance of Forgiveness
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Published in 1812, Rev. C Colton writes In his book, Hypocrisy: A Satire, in Three Books: Book the First:
The falling Sandal-Tree sheds fragrance round,
Perfumes the axe that fells it to the ground;
Some through their tortured trunks a balm supply,
And to give life to their destroyer—die;
And Earth’s torn, mangled beast, but yields the more,
And pours from deepest wounds her richest store.
In Luke 6:27-35, Jesus says it much more plainly and practical:
“But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. Do to others as you would like them to do to you…
...Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.”
As Pastor Jacob was preaching on this passage today, and the counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, yet healing-brokering power of the “Golden Rule”, I couldn’t help but think of how this principle often plays out for the caregiver, and indeed has for me in my own caregiving experience.
Dementia, especially Lewy Body Dementia, can often surface some very ugly and hurtful behaviors in its victims. Before my precious mother-in-law, Nola, was diagnosed with any form of dementia the symptoms that emerged were ones that sadly targeted the very closest people in her world. Specifically, my father-in-law, who endured all manner of verbal, emotional, and even physical abuse in stoic silence, ultimately at great cost to his own health and cognitive wellness. Living in a tortured world of paranoid hallucinations, Nola imagined Doug to be engaged in a host of immoral, illegal, and unfaithful behaviors. It was truly terrible, and we the kids knew little about it until the damage had been done.
As the disease progressed, we were able to get her diagnosed and treated (which is itself another battle and story altogether). There were certain medications that were wonder drugs for her condition (Seroquel) which would mute the hallucinations - all of them, the visual, auditory and olfactory. The sad and painful part, however, was that the hallucinations she had experienced were as real to her as our actual everyday conversations, and lingered with her in memory causing her great distrust towards her husband and those of us she imagined enabling his egregious imaginary behavior. It was literally a daily emotional struggle we had to navigate with kindness, forgiveness, creativity and a whole lot of redirection.
Even in the very last months of her dementia decline, I myself became the focus of those hurtful accusations and claims of unfaithfulness, as she would says things like “I know what you’re doing with those girls, I saw you…”, and “Tina would be so ashamed of you”. There were days I simply had to laugh it off, to keep from crying.
I want to be careful in how I share this, because despite these horrible aspects of Nola’s dementia, there still persisted to be a loving, God-fearing and Jesus-praising spirit stuck in the turmoil of her mental confusion. We would see that spirit emerge at times, and remind us that all is not broken - and that God is faithful to His children. I loved and respected Nola, and I still do. But the dementia was terrible, and there’s no denying that truth.
It was especially hard for Tina, as the only child, to often receive the overflow of accusation and verbal abuse that once was reserved for her father. On top of that, Tina felt great defensiveness for her father and absorbed much of the emotional pain she imagined he must have endured. Dementia can cause a person to lash out irrationally at all the closest people in their personal sphere, especially so their caregivers.
When I ponder “forgiveness” in light of these experiences, I realize there are multiple layers of forgiveness we have had to navigate. There is, of course, forgiveness for the person afflicting the damage. To help posture myself in a way where I could forgive the accusations and verbal attacks, I had to remind myself often that “the pre-dementia Nola would be mortified at what the now-dementia Nola is doing”. To be honest, though, in the moment and in the sting of hurtful words and actions, it took a deliberate choice to not respond in defensiveness or retaliation. And there were times I simply failed at that.
There is also forgiveness towards dementia itself. I have grown to hate dementia. Hate it for what it does to a person, and to all the people in its impact radius. Hate for how it mars the image of God and threatens to dehumanize a person so effectively.
In fact, as I’m writing this, Tina and I just had a text exchange. She asked what I was doing - this is the conversation:
Me: working on my own forgiveness reflections after Jacob’s message.
Tina: Who are you forgiving?
Me: Dementia ultimately
Tina: …it’s hard to comprehend, saying I forgive dementia…
Yes it is.
In his book Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia, John Dunlop, MD, writes:
“Suffering can be counted a privilege for a Christian. At first it may be hard to consider suffering as a privilege, especially when it is caused by dementia, but when we consider what Jesus endured for us and some of the good results that God can accomplish through dementia, we may actually count it so…We may not always (or even frequently) understand how the suffering associated with dementia uniquely prepares us for the glory of God’s presence, especially while enduring it. But if we know our Bible and have been taught a biblical view of suffering, we will be better prepared when we experience it.”
I can forgive dementia, when viewed through this lens, even though its ravages are unforgivable. I cannot deny how the LORD has used these experiences to draw me closer, to expand my capacity to love and serve and empathize, and to prepare us, and Nola for an unimaginable glory.
Finally, there is forgiveness for myself. When you are caregiving for someone with disruptive dementia, you are often thinking on your feet, responding and reacting before you can “meditate on your actions”. You often fail. I look back on my interactions and exchanges and wish I had done better. Wish that I had possessed the patience of Job and the illumined countenance of Stephen. I doubted God’s goodness much more than I praised it. I loathed myself for not being more selfless than I was. As I have talked with other caregivers, and read more about the common caregiver experience, I have been encouraged to know I/we were not unique in this. As caregivers, we need to forgive ourselves. We are human, we are error-prone, we are far from perfect. But I’m reminded of one amazing promise from the Scriptures: “When I am weak, then He is strong”.
Where do I begin?
There’s a million and one sermons out there, meditations, entire books written on the subject of forgiveness. I don’t have much to add to that tome of work. But what I do know are these three simple truths:
Forgiveness begins with Confession. I have to confess my unforgiveness, and accept the fact that I fall short in this every single day.
Forgiveness begins with letting go of my need for vindication. Nicky Gumbel has said that holding on to unforgiveness towards someone is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill your enemy. We’re only hurting ourselves. Forgiveness is ultimately an act of trust that God is good, He knows what is right, and He will act fairly in the end.
Forgiveness is unleashed with compassionate action. I think this is why Jesus says it the way He does. He doesn’t say, get your heart right and then do kind things for your abuser. He says simply “Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you”. When we choose compassionate action, and commit ourselves to it, something changes within us. We grow the heart of God, and are able with the Holy Spirit’s help to be “...kind to those who are unthankful and wicked”, just as the Father Himself is.
That poem about the lingering fragrance of the Sandal-Tree gets me. The aroma of its perfume lays upon the axe of its destroyer. There is no other human response in the world that can change, transform, and indeed heal our broken human relationships the way that forgiveness does. It’s not easy. It’s not supposed to be. If it was, it would be instinctive to all of us. But it is absolutely counter-intuitive, counter-cultural, and yet as right-side-up as anything can be in this upside down world. It heals, it protects, it releases an aroma that clears the air of all putrefying odor. It’s the love of Jesus in action.
In his book The Caregiver Meditations: Reflections on Loving Presence, Erie Chapman writes:
“In 1905, one of the great geniuses of history discovered the formula for the physics of energy. Einstein developed his theory from his understanding that every object, inanimate or otherwise, constrained enormous reserves of energy that had the potential to release quantum amounts of power.
“Here in the 21st century, we have the chance to make an equally important discovery. More powerful than E=mc2 is the discovery that L=hc2. Love is the power of humanity multiplied by compassion squared. The compassion of forgiveness releases an explosion of love’s energy through us, an energy which is healing for those who give as well as those who receive. This is the formula of Jesus, the greatest genius of love the world has ever seen.”
Indeed, Jesus “pours from deepest wounds his richest store.” That aroma is for you, it is for me, it is for all those we are called to forgive.
