JOY

Forgiveness

I’ve been thinking about it a lot the past month or so. It is truly an action. Forgiveness is not something that comes very easy to most people and is not something you can really do casually either. It takes some serious mental furniture being shifted to change your opinion on someone from an extreme of hate or dislike to one of approval or at the very least indifference. You make that switch, often without prompting or sufficient logical evidence to do so.

What possesses us to do this? What allows us to do this?

I like to think of myself as a pretty forgiving person. Throughout my life I’ve forgiven a lot of people for a lot of things. Some of them pretty bad. I won’t go into detail here. But I did it. And yet, there are still things I can’t forgive. Things that are years old still eat away at me. Some of these things are for arguably smaller infractions than certain sins I’ve already forgiven. Why are some situations different? I have no answers.

In the past couple weeks these thoughts have peaked.  As they did, I stumbled on two things that addressed the subject pretty specifically. They were fairly unexpected sources.

The first one was in a movie theatre. Watching Saw 3. Odd? Yes. The movie has a running theme of forgiveness. Not to give too much plot away, but a man is kidnapped and forced to risk/sacrifice his life to save those involved in the wrongful death of his son and careless prosecution of his drunk driving killer. The movie is very violent, very bloody, and the relevance is fuzzy. But it does highlight what a wet blanket on top of your life holding a grudge can be. It can consume you. Paralyze you. Couple that with my previous meditations, it was almost more shocking that a horror movie of that kind would deal with that very topic than the blood and guts themselves.

The second was from an episode of the prison drama “OZ“. OZ was one of my favorite shows while it was airing (on HBO) and I was a pretty devoted viewer. I saw nearly every episode of the first 5 seasons. Then I moved and my new set up did not include the channel. What happened in the 6th and final season was a mystery to me for years. I finally bought the full season (I already owned the previous 5) last month while on a work induced* DVD binge.

Tim McManus (played by Terry Kinney), Kareem Said (Eamonn Walker), Hill, Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen), Warden Leo Glynn (Ernie Hudson)

The 6th season of OZ is nearly unanimously accepted as the worst season of the show and criticized by fans as seeming thrown together. I strongly disagree. I don’t know where it ranks. I don’t really rank things. But I found the whole season to be full of deep topics, heart wrenching drama, satisfying character arcs, disappointing outcomes and full of poignant questions. This is not to say that the first 5 seasons don’t have these things. They all do. But the 6th season belongs in the discussion. 

A little more about the show and its creator. OZ has a way of lowering your expectations. Not in the art itself but for what you expect out of the men (and a few women) that are inside its walls. Violence is more than prevalent. Unspeakable acts are the norm. Victories for justice and/or improvement in the lives of a convict are few, far between, and if we make it that far, then they are small victories. Baby steps. The show is very realistic in that way. There isn’t a lot of correction going on in our correctional facilities.

So the show succeeds in making these small victories seem like mountain moving experiences. It asks you to forgive men for their terrible acts when they try to be better.

The creator is Tom Fontana. He also created Homicide: Life on the Street and wrote for St. Elsewhere along with other critical favorites. Homicide happens to be my favorite show of all time.

I consider Fontana to be one of the greatest writers alive, certainly in the entertainment business anyway. Nearly all his shows have required him to juggle a very large ensemble cast and make you care about them after seeing them in very limited screen time available. It is a juggling act that he has mastered like nobody else has. OZ must have had upwards of 25 to 30 or so major or fairly major characters at any one time. Homicide had 10 or 12 cops that you needed to care about while still telling stories about crimes. And he made you care.

OZ is formatted like a regular show, except a few times during each episode when a character narrates or philosophizes to the camera in a breaking down of the 4th wall. This is usually done by Harold Perrineau playing Augustus Hill. The narrator usually hammers home a theme that most storylines in the episode are threaded together with.

In season 6 is an episode titled 4giveness. Perrineau’s character has died, so the final season contains guest narrators from the ghosts of OZ past. Inmates killed over the course of the show. As the title suggests, the focus of commentary is forgiveness. We start out with two guest narrators: Hank Schillinger (played by Andrew Barchilon) and Andrew Schillinger (played by Frederick Koehler). Both are sons of long running Aryan leader and all around bad guy Vern Schillinger (played by J.K. Simmons.)

The show usually looks at both sides of the issue. We are not inundated with scenes of prisoners forgiving each other. The topic is discussed, we may see someone forgive someone else, but chances are we are going to see a lot of people not forgiving someone else.

Hank & Andrew talk about the medical benefits for forgiveness. Preventing strokes and heart attacks for example. They raise this question: “If forgiving is so good for us, then why don’t we do it more?” They give two reasons we hold back:

(1) Accountability- As long as we are in pain we need someone to blame. What do we do with all our pain if we let the bastard that hurt us off the hook?

(2) Identity- Without this rage consuming me…without this resentment and bitterness…who am I?

They talk about Christ and his teachings on forgiveness. They talk about his example in saying “Forgive them father, for they no not what they do”, all while hanging from a cross with spikes through his hands and feet. “Kind of raises the stakes for the rest of us?” 

They ask: “Who is the hardest person to forgive?” Yourself. Your inner demons laugh at the very thought. When you forgive someone else, they aren’t likely to turn you down. Forgiving yourself? You turn yourself down all the time. 10 years go by and you still can’t let yourself off the hook. 15 years…20…40…maybe take your grudge against yourself to the grave. Will you carry it with you for eternity?

Perrineau returns to share these thoughts:

A man stands in a cemetery reading a letter he wrote, trying to forgive his long dead father. A mother of a girl killed by a drunk driver is racked with fantasies of retaliation. Your boyfriend begs you for one more chance. You say to the mirror “you’re done hating yourself.” But you know you’re not.

Maybe instead of forgive and forget, it should be forgive and remember. Remember that you might have to wake up tomorrow and forgive all over again…and again…and again. The way the heart keeps beating like a drum…FORGIVE…I can’t…YOU CAN…

FORGIVE…FORGIVE…I can’t…YOU CAN…FORGIVE

Fontana describes himself as spiritual, maybe even religious, but he is not a member of any religion. In his commentaries he discusses the act of forgiveness and said it is the quality that brings us closest to God or whatever is out there. God and morality is a frequent topic in most of his work, showing up often in Homicide in particular.

Tom Fontana

Forgiveness is not limited to this one episode. It is sprinkled throughout the 6th season. Most notably playing a major role in the arc of arguably the series star and my favorite character Ryan O’Reily (played by Dean Winters.) O’Reily is a sort of one man Irish mafia who has major family issues he needs to resolve.

As I was watching this episode in a kind of odd place, I felt the significance of the message and its timeliness hit me like a brick wall. Clearly there are things that I need to do in my life. It is just the simple matter of….well, doing them…

…I CAN…

*read: mandated for survival

** Some interesting quotes on forgiveness **

I’m Finally on IMDB

 Getting yourself on IMDB is like pulling teeth…with your bare hands. I’m only listed for one credit so far. I’m in the process of adding a bizzillion other credits so check back in 4-8 weeks.

 **UPDATED**

IMDB has moved faster than anticipated, adding 3 new credits. For some reason they only have me as working on one episode of HDIL. I seem to remember 6 months of hell on that show, but I may have made that up in my head. More credits to come…

Hey Mr. DJ…

Headphones: Use them or lose them.