(photo by Tom Delaney, Sherburne County, Minnesota, 2025)
The air is a bit cooler in the mornings and evenings of late. On any walk it is a small joy to see the Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis) in bloom. The Evening Primrose is a species native to our oak savanna, is also known by the name King’s Cure-All. The humble Evening Primrose plays a big and important role in the local ecosystem by serving as a source of food for our pollinators, hummingbirds, goldfinches, and other birds. When you see a lot of Evening Primrose, you’re seeing a well set table!
Today let’s take a look at the most common reasons people choose to forgive. Forgiveness researcher Robert Enright lists eight categories:
- You forgive to quiet your angry feelings.
- Forgiveness changes destructive thoughts into quieter more healthy thoughts.
- As you forgive, you want to act more civilly toward the one who hurt you.
- Forgiveness of one person helps you interact better with other. Perhaps your anger with one person has spilled over into your relationships with others. Forgiving the first person would be a gift to those other people!
- Forgiveness can improve your relationship with the one who hurt you.
- Your forgiveness actually can help the one who hurt you to see his or her unfairness and to take steps to stop it. Your forgiving can enhance the character of the one who hurt you.
- You forgive because God asks you to do so. You forgive an an act of love toward God.
- Forgiveness, as an act of kindness, and love toward the one who hurt you , is a moral good regardless of how the other is responding to you. Loving others, while protecting yourself from harm, is a morally good thing to do.
See Forgiveness is a Choice (2001), pp. 43-44.
Enright explains that the first set of six reasons center on the consequences of forgiving. Og these, the first three center on consequences for your psychological and physical health, The next two focus on consequences for your relationships with others as you forgive. The sixth reason focuses on the consequences for the offender’s well-being. Reasons #7 and #8 do not focus as much on consequences of forgiving, but rather on the intrinsic quality of forgiveness as a good thing.
Different people may have different reasons for wanting to forgive someone, and may place different values or priorities on different reasons. All of the reasons are reasonable and valid, and work for choosing to learn and use a guided approach to forgiveness like the REACH Forgiveness Process that can be presented and worked through with a presentation, guided retreat, wilderness walk or small group series in your parish or other faith community, Something that can happen in this presentation or process is that participants show up with their own personal small set of reasons for forgiving, and then are further motivated in their forgiveness when they learn the other valid reasons for forgiving someone. That increased motivation increases the chances of someone fully forgiving someone else in their life, and makes the experience more meaningful, fulfilling and long-lasting. It’s a transformational experience that we as human beings have a built-in capacity to make happen in our lives.
This text is an original work of its author Tom Delaney and was entirely composed without the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
If your parish or faith community is seeking a deeper experience of healing, mercy, and spiritual renewal, Live and Forgive is here to help. To begin the conversation, email Live and Forgive presenter and facilitator Tom Delaney at tom@liveandforgive.com—Tom will be glad to connect with you in a spirit of welcome, respect, and shared faith.
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