To Forgive Is to Set a Prisoner Free: Books and Poems on Forgiveness

Lewis B. Smedes was a theologian who spent a good part of his working life thinking about forgiveness, and the line below is the one he's remembered for. I like it because it turns the usual picture round. We tend to imagine forgiveness as a gift handed to someone who doesn't deserve it. Smedes suggests the person walking out of the cell might be you.

It's the starting point for this literary prescription, one of the reading lists I put together at Book Quote Therapy for the feelings that are hardest to put into words.

For: the complicated, misunderstood work of forgiveness

The Quote

'To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.'
Lewis B. Smedes

The Poem

A Brief for the Defense by Jack Gilbert.

Not strictly about forgiveness, but about the stubborn, defiant decision to let yourself feel something other than grievance, even when grievance would be justified. It's a poem about refusing to let suffering be the only thing that gets to win.

'...To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil...'

Read the full poem at the Poetry Society of America

The Book

The Choice by Dr Edith Eva Eger

Eger survived Auschwitz as a teenager and spent decades afterwards as a psychologist, working with people on exactly this question, how to live alongside what was done to you without letting it become the only story you tell.

She is unflinching about the difference between forgiveness and forgetting, and about the fact that forgiveness was never owed to anyone but herself.

The Reflection

I think forgiveness might be one of the most misunderstood words in the language. People hear it and assume it means something it doesn't, that you're saying what happened was acceptable, that you're inviting the person back in, that you're choosing to forget.

It isn't any of those things.

Forgiveness is not for the person who hurt you. It doesn't excuse what they did, and it doesn't require you to forget it, or trust them again, or let them anywhere near you. What it actually does is much smaller and much more radical than that, it takes the grievance out of your hands and puts it down, so it stops being the thing you carry every single day.

Not forgiving is also a valid choice. Some things genuinely cannot or should not be forgiven, and that's allowed too. But if you find yourself holding onto something that's exhausting you more than it's protecting you, it might be worth asking who that grudge is actually serving.

Often, it's just you, paying a debt that was never yours to pay.

The Question to Sit With

Is what I'm holding onto protecting me, or simply costing me?

A Gentle Pause

If you'd like to sit with this for a few minutes, I recorded a forgiveness meditation for exactly this, a gentle practice for setting down some of what you've been carrying.

Listen: Forgiveness Meditation

You'll also find a deeper literary prescription on forgiveness at Book Quote Therapy, with more books, poems and reflections than I have room for here.

You might also like to take the mood quiz over at the Literary Compass and see where it leads you.

Words for the Wall

If you'd like a quieter reminder on the wall, the To Let Go poem comes as a typewriter print and as a botanical design. And Buddha's In the End Only Three Things Matter finishes on letting go of what was never meant for you.

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The book link is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.