Last night, I went to a performance at the Roundhouse: Unprovoked. The play was created through the work of The Forgiveness Project. The play tells the story of the knife-murder of a fifteen-year old girl by an eighteen-year old girl and how it is that the mother (Mary Folely) of the victim has forgiven the girl who killed her daughter. We had the privilege of being joined afterwards by Mary in a Q&A session. Not surprisingly, I think, the Q&A focused equally on understanding Mary’s journey to forgiveness alongside exploring how young people become subsumed by violence and destruction.  Mary, through the Forgiveness Project, is very active in giving talks at prisons, particularly those filled with young offenders. I concluded the evening with two ideas dominating my brainwaves: (1) at the heart of forgiveness is freedom (2) too many people in our society – of all ages - are feeling unheard and unseen and a critical a consequence of this is violence and destruction in big and small forms, directed inwards and outwards.

For this post, I’m going to focus on the first idea. In particular, I’m thinking about it in the context of social change and activism.

To some people, forgiveness is a somehow an act of weakness, a ‘giving in’ to someone who has caused harm to you – a ‘they win’ outcome. In the play, Mary’s character (and she said this herself after the performance) eloquently describes how the anger she felt towards her daughter’s killer, Beatriz, was changing her. She was becoming a type of person her daughter would not have liked and in some ways, she suggests, she was becoming little different from someone who kills – at least in her thoughts. She would consider what could happen to Beatriz in prison – how punishment might be inflicted on the girl. She distanced herself from her children and her husband. The on-going harsh and disconnecting thoughts and behaviours she was experiencing in her self were allowing one death in their family to turn into two.

Alongside Mary’s increasing discomfort with how she was being in her self and in the world, forgiveness popped into her head and heart. The first time it made an appearance, she quickly dismissed it. Then she starting allowing it to hang around a bit longer each time it came. Finally, one day, she embraced it and chose it as an action. She described to us how in doing so, she felt that a burden had been lifted from her shoulders.  Now Mary dedicates time and energy to turning her family’s tragedy into a learning tool – into a tool that can hopefully also lift heavy burdens from the lives of others – particularly young people who have committed violent crimes.

I think of Mary and I think courage. Yet, something in our society discourages people from forgiveness; as I’ve already said, some people see it as a weakness. But that isn’t all that is going on in the arguments against forgiveness.

Anger is powerful.

Anger usually tries to steer us away from forgiveness – wanting to protect itself and to grow and thrive, anger must keep forgiveness at bay. Anger heats us up, it can help shift us from feeling like vulnerable victims to empowered protagonists, it energises us. Anger can seem like a strong, reliable, protective friend.

At first glance all this sounds positive – anger as a valuable asset. And it is in this way that anger fuels the day –to-day movement of many social activists.

Anger. ANGER!

Mary chose forgiveness because it helped her to return to feeling whole and to connecting fully with her compassionate humanity.  We briefly touched upon the idea that forgiveness is often made possible because the perpetrator of harm has shown remorse and regret.  What if someone doesn’t even see that they have done anything wrong, let alone show remorse? In such a situation can we forgive?

I ask this, because often we social activists find ourselves in situations where we are angry because we feel we aren’t be heard or respected. We feel that, for example, policymakers are ignoring our needs. It is the sense of injustice that often keeps us going day in and day out and often under rather trying circumstances. We have no one to forgive because no one seems to be taking responsibility for what it is that we feel is harming us. But what we do have is anger, raging inside us. 

Mary is taking an active part in creating social change without anger – and this seems inextricably tied to her choice to forgive.  Her story has me wondering: What role might forgiveness have to play in social activism? Can we be credible and effective if we aren’t driven by anger? What does social activism rooted in compassion look like? 

Mary is a strong, powerful force.  I think of her, and I’m inclined to think that anger can be a valuable and perhaps necessary catalyst for change – it is what fires us up and it is a natural response to injustice – but then we would serve ourselves well to shift anger into another energy, into another type of fuel, one that keeps us more deeply connected with the truth of who we can be as human beings – compassionate and nurturing.  We would do well to be aware, I think, of the ways in which anger can easily become a false friend. 

Forgiveness is intriguing me right now. I feel like it turns conventional approaches to social change on their head. It directs us to find freedom, strength and power by letting go of our anger. It almost feels counterintuitive. 

But then breaking old habits often does feel strange, uncomfortable and wrong – so much so, that we struggle hard to succeed in making the break. And now I’m inclined to ask and consider: what are the habits we have as social changemakers/activists that feel ‘right’ because we are accustomed to them – but actually are doing us a dis-service? In what ways – as was happening to Mary – are our reactions to injustice taking us away from being the people we want to be and creating the society we want to see?

I am in the line for security at the airport. It is a longer line than usual, but thankfully I arrived early enough to not care. Behind me stands a daughter and a mother. At one point, daughter says loudly: “I was so calm this morning. Now I’m totally stressed out. Mom, you’re stressful. Travelling with you is stressful. I hate this. When I’m alone, travelling is not stressful. This is awful.”  About thirty seconds after she finishes her last sentence, I turn and look at her, catching her eye. I say nothing. The line moves slowly. I badly want to speak to the daughter, but as she continues in angry mode, I assume it would not be well received. At one point, the mother is commenting on how she had been cold outside, but now inside is warm and so she will take off her sweater. As she takes off her sweater, I observe: ‘Of course, you know it will be cold in the airplane.’

I hadn’t done it consciously, but I quickly realize this was a tester – to see how they might react to me entering their verbal space. The mom, sweater off, simply says – ‘Well, yes’ and in a tone that doesn’t seem inviting to me. I’ve started enough random conversations with strangers to know when they aren’t interested. I look at the people in front of me. I look at the floor. 

Finally, I cannot bear it anymore – the bubbling inside me. We are at a standstill for a few minutes and the mom-daughter conversation gets loud again. When there is a pause, I look up and catch the daughter’s eye and I say it: “I’m sorry, totally none of my business, but when I hear you, I hear myself. I mean, before, when you were saying how stressful your mom is – that was me, before, maybe five years ago. Thing is, yeh, your mom is going to do stuff that annoys you, but how calm you are about it is up to you. How much you enjoy your trip is up to you.” Pause, while my heart quickens its pace as I wait to for her/their response.

“Yeh, I know. You are totally right” shrugs daughter.

And with that, we continue to talk. Turns out daughter is twenty-three and mom fifty-six.  The daughter is thin, perhaps five foot five with long straw blond hair. She looks quite soft. But then she talks and you can feel the anger she carries, the hardness inside her. She thinks her mom is the cause of it all. She explains how she is worried about this, how she wonders if she should talk to someone professionally about this (remember, I’m in the US). She thinks she should meditate. “After all”, she observes, “I’m never like this with my friends.”  

We behave with immediate family in ways that we do not behave with others – we have no boundaries. I say this and daughter gets excited: “Exactly – she has no boundaries!”  I don’t want to take sides, but I am feeling for mom here. Using an example of conflict they experienced before coming out to the airport, I observe - based on something she says  - that it seems if the daughter’s friends behaved the same way, she wouldn’t react with such levels of stress – and she nods her head. I’m thinking at this point: daughter has mom in a box labeled in capital letters, perhaps red: STRESS. She sees mom and she sees the box.

Most of the conversation is with the daughter. The mom is silent except when I ask her something directly. She is soft-spoken. She explains they are on their way to a brother’s/son’s fiance’s bridal shower, going first to LaGuardia and then Newark (daughter criticizes her for giving too much detail).  She is looking forward to the trip. Daughter is not. Mom confirms she would like for the daughter to have fun and that whenever they travel she enjoys it and wishes her daughter would also.

I learn a bit more about their family dynamic – the daughter has four brothers and no sisters, while the mom is one of five daughters, no brothers.  “Perhaps” observes daughter “this is the thing, I’m just so different from her. I can’t be the sisterly type. I’ve got a lot of boy energy.” The mom suggests that it might be a big load to be the only girl in a family.

We shift subjects when focus on taking off shoes and putting stuff in in security boxes. I think we will part ways after a few words about my being off to London, but then I find them next to me while I am on the bench putting on my shoes. I am about to say goodbye, when I have that bubbling again. “So, I know that your mom does things which annoy you – it is hard for a mom not to and it is easy for a daughter to get annoyed. But I sense that your mom loves you. And she doesn’t want to stress you out. It’s a gift – a mom who loves you and wants to spend time with you. Not everyone has that.””

 “I know” daughter says “I know and you know what, I don’t want be like this. I don’t like being like this. This isn’t me. It’s who I am in response to my mom”

“No, its not you” I venture. And then I add, “It’s who you are in this dynamic.”

“Exactly,” she says “It is who I am in response to my mom being so stressful.”

“Hmm. Yes, you are stressed out by a dynamic between you and your mom” I feed back, as I sense that our conversation is ready to close.

“Do give meditation a try. And it is great that at 23 you are aware that this is not you, and that you want to change it. It is an early start - I did not come to such awareness until I was a lot older.  I hope you enjoy your trip.” I offer up as a conclusion.

The mom leans over and gives me a hug with a quiet “Thank you.” The daughter says warmly “Thanks for saying something and sharing your experience.”

Sometimes I get it wrong – I stick my nose in it and people get annoyed and angry. I rarely do it to give advice. I usually do it just to be social and because I enjoy conversation and learning about/from other people. Nevertheless, it isn’t always welcomed.

But it is exchanges like this that make the risk of random connections worth it.

And it is exchanges like this that I look back on and wish I had expressed my gratitude, had said ‘thank you’ to mother and daughter. Not simply for interesting conversation – but for helping me reflect on and learn from/for my own relationships.

They won’t hear it, but I’ll say it anyway here (and now, as the plane starts it’s descent into London): “Thank you mom and daughter. Thank you.” 

I do a lot of work with movement/dance. Last weekend, I participated in a workshop where I was very conscious of this idea of (in)visibility. One woman stands out in particular. She is stunning looking in a host of ways – including a number of tattoos. I have seen her at other movement events and sense that she likes to be visible. The tattoos alone – in very readily seen places on her body – create a loud invitation to look at her. But also, the few times I’ve seen her, she has been always conspicuous in terms of being in the centre of the room or standing while everyone else is sitting. Again, I hear ‘ Look at me.’ This has me thinking about the ways we encourage others to look at us and the extent which we are limiting or expanding  what people see. The question that comes to mind is: How can we use our power to appear and disappear most effectively to bring about the change we desire?

I make a huge assumption with this question. I assume we have control over our visibility. At one level, this is fundamentally untrue. Try as we might, sometimes people simply refuse to see us. What then? What do we do? Well, I will come back to that particular issue in a future post. For now, I’m going to roll with the assumption: I/you/we can control and direct when and how we are seen – at least to some degree.

Our power is rooted in self-awareness. What do we see in ourselves that we want to make visible to those around us? What do we want to hide from others?

Social changemakers – whether in small or large ways – often are wanting to make our anger visible. We are driven to pursue change because of an injustice and wrong, a sense that ‘things should be different’ and we are angry that they are not.  What happens if we focus on putting our anger out there – on being seen as ANGRY?

Anger, depending on its form, will receive a variety of responses. And that’s the key – what form does our anger take? When a group of protestors burns down a bunch of shops, they are seen as angry – but also as reckless, disrespectful, dangerous, and perhaps stupid, i.e. if those shops are in their own neighbourhood. In such a situation, I imagine witnesses – those for whom the anger is meant – become less inclined to pause and ask ‘Why such anger?” or “What responsibility do I have to try and engage with this person’s sense of injustice?’ Rather than become curious, witnesses to such anger are more likely to become confused, dismissive and silent.

This is by no means a suggestion that we encourage violent anger by responding to it – by sending the message ‘be violent, it is the way to get seen and heard.’  Again, that raises a related but different topic. Nor is it to suggest that we avoid expressing anger. The pressing question is: What are the most effective ways of bringing our angry selves into visibility – the ways which encourage others to engage with it and us and the others aspects of our selves we want them to see, e.g., the creative problem-solver, courage, compassion?

I like to answer this question by focusing attention firstly on the source(s) of the anger. Why are we angry and what request(s) do we want to make of others to change what it is that draws us to anger? What aspects of our requests are fixed and what actually are fluid, i.e., we want a more fair decision, but we aren't locked on one route to achieve that sense of fairness. Then I focus on the direction of the anger - to whom is it towards? In my actions, am I being truthful or misdirected, e.g., am I wrongly shooting a messenger for a message created by someone else?  Next, I wonder 'What does escalation look like?' That is, what does a request look like and if that meets resistance, what does my demand look like? When does it make most sense to request? To demand? What is the most effective way to express either?

I also am aware of a set of questions I think can get easily lost: How can I connect with the people who have the power to meet my request/demand? How can I connect with others who may be sympathetic to my request/demand - and support me in the asking? 

When people look at us, what they see is inevitably determined both by what we make visible and what's alive in them and shapes the lens through which they are viewing us. The final set of questions coming to mind on this topic, for right now: What do I want people to see in me? How do I know if they are seeing it - and if not, what are they seeing in its place? If I'm hiding something - rendering a part of myself invisible - why am I doing that and what is the consequence?