Healing Agony, written by Stephen Cherry, an Anglican priest who served as Dean of King’s College in Cambridge.
This book deals with forgiveness and its complex nature, offering me new perspectives on the subject. Before reading the book, the word ‘forgiveness’ had lost some of its full meaning for me; we hear it and use it so often that we forget its profound significance. The title Healing Agony refers precisely to this reality: forgiveness is never easy or quick. Forgiveness is an agony that leads to healing. Throughout the book, Cherry uses real-life examples to demonstrate how varied and complex forgiveness can be.
Forgiveness is a journey, with an undefined length and destination. Every experience is unique because it is deeply personal, and therefore each person goes through it in a different manner. In Christianity, forgiveness occupies a central place in the New Testament and in the Lord’s Prayer: ‘forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ Here it is important to distinguish between God’s forgiveness and human forgiveness: human beings cannot forgive in the same way that God forgives because people struggle to forgive and often require time to do so. The idea of the ‘family of forgiveness’ emerges from this distinction: divine forgiveness, forgiveness between people, and self-forgiveness.
When speaking about forgiveness between people, it begins when one person hurts another. This pain can vary greatly in severity and may be physical, emotional, or mental; at times it can be so profound that it can even break a person. Cherry classifies this pain in four levels: trivial, serious, significant and shattering. The word ‘forgiveness’ is used in all these situations, from a minor person to person collision on the pavement to a devastating loss such as the murder of someone close to you. However, not every situation calls for the same response. In trivial cases, where there is no intention to cause harm, the word ‘tolerance’ may be more appropriate than ‘forgiveness’. This is because the difficulty of forgiveness always varies according to the degree of pain that has been suffered.
In times of suffering, especially when betrayal or a breach of trust are involved, people can easily become confused. They know they should forgive, yet find themselves unable to do so. They feel lost and may even lose their sense of identity. For this reason, forgiveness is not merely a matter of willpower but a far deeper and more complex process.
Healing Agony is not a book that offers simple answers, rather it explores forgiveness as it truly is, in all its complexity and profoundness. It challenges readers to rethink forgiveness, something we often assume we understand well. This article is only a small taste of what the book offers, and I would recommend it to anyone who wishes to discover forgiveness from fresh and different perspectives.
Kian Borg
SDC Candidate
