I was talking to someone this AM and mentioned that I really don’t think I hold many grudges. I did once hate someone who undermined my work in a terrible way but I’ve gotten over it. I guess I used to hate my father, but later in life grew pretty fond of him. Probably hated my first wife, but I don’t think I do any more. But I also think that perhaps it has to do with my bad memory; and that my memory isn’t particularly visual, so I just don’t relive hurts and can’t even remember many of them. However, I just wonder if this is really indifference rather than forgiveness. This is something I want to think about.

1. What was done to me?
At 52, I had worked for myself in some way, shape or form for the better part my 30 years in Marketing. After an inconsistent, but overall, successful career, my consulting business was on a huge upswing. My partner, however, represented a much more significant downside. Having been in both successful and unsuccessful partnerships before, I knew we were headed for big trouble after six months and suggested we employ a counselor to help us work through our difficulties. When he refused to get help from a third party, I knew it was only going to get worse. From then on we communicated almost entirely in writing because we hated talking to each other, as well as for documentation purposes, both sensing the inevitable. I hung in there as long as possible for the money, which I considered prudent in the wake of a long down-turn that lasted nearly six years. When my ‘partner’ began cutting himself checks I had no choice but to file an injunction to strip him of his power in the business. After almost four years of horrendous litigation, culminating in a five day Federal jury trial, which I ‘won’ on many counts of my partner’s Breech of Fiduciary Duties, the aforementioned inevitable has been worse than I could have ever imagined. I developed Acute Coronary Syndrome in the middle of it all, requiring emergency surgery. My preoccupation with the lawsuit has been nothing short of devastating emotionally to the extent to which I recently (11-24-06) wound up an inpatient in [a] Clinic, a Psychiatric Hospital. I spent five days in a locked-down unit being treated for suicidal and homicidal tendencies resulting from Severe Recurrent Major Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder resulting from the lawsuit. A recovering alcoholic, the good news is I didn’t drink; hence, remain sober since 5-25-98. I just finished participating in [a] Clinic’s Partial Inpatient Program (9 AM-3 PM, five days a week) for nine days and have begun After Care with both a Counselor and a Psychiatrist with whom I’ll be meeting weekly for an indefinite period of time. The following was done to me (From Pastor Bill’s list: Physical Harm, Hatred, Betrayal, Robbery, Abuse, Gossip, Slander, Criticism, Judgment, Breech of Contract, Abandonment, Negligence, Loss of consortium, Lie, Infliction of emotional distress, Withholding love, Deception, Disobedience, Embarrassment, Treating indifferently, Break word, Anger).

2. What was taken from me?
The following is taken from Pastor Bill’s list: Created the loss of Material, Opportunity, Reputation ,Livelihood, Hope, Confidence, Self-respect, Trust in others, sense of empowerment, sense of value, identity, reputation, comfort, health, wholeness, peace, sense of control,sense of safety, ability to make sense out of the world,ability to love others, ability to be vulnerable, joy, happiness, friends, family, past way of life, autonomy, meaning and purpose. Created the presence of Nightmares, questioning God’s power, His love, His goodness, cynicism, Shame, insecurities, New fears, feeling dirty, feeling unattractive, feeling unlovable, feeling unloving, desire for vengeance, anger, depression, despair, Guilt, Ambivalence, rage, Hope. My partner refusing to communicate with me robbed me of hope to ever be successful in business again. Since that was where almost all of my self-worth lie, I was, once again, leveled emotionally– no, this time, I was at less than zero emotionally and soon, mentally, physically and spiritually. . In retrospect it was as if God let me taste ‘The Good Life’ one last time to make me realize that it wasn’t good at all — at least not for me.

3. How much was this worth?
Monetary $3,000,000 based on lost wages since 2003 and until age 65 ($240,000/year), $1,000,000 paid in one initial lump sum and then the rest paid monthly.

What do I want the Perpetrator to do?
Punishment? My partner would create a blog at his expense explaining the truth I great detail - from initial discussions to become partners through the trial to the present. He would mail (all forms) a list of people provided by me, an overview of the truth with a link to the blog dedicated to a detailed description. He would, then, follow up personally via the phone and in-person, at my discression, to apologize for harming them. He would make formal apologies in-person to me and my family televised for the world to see in an expose of what malicious litigation can do to a family.

4. Mourn the Loss

5. Access Deep Consolation (Fairy Tale Ending)

I was recently at a student chapel of a well known Midwestern Christian college; sponsored by a student group called ‘Solidarity’. It is my sense that Solidarity desired to expose the student body (majority of which is white, European descent) to an ugly residual racism that still lingers in the shadows, not only in the world, but also in the US and more to their point— even just beneath the Christian surface on their very campus. It wasn’t a blatant anger of class or race. That would be easy to identify and to ferret out. This was far more subtle. They labeled it ‘white privilege’ but that also is far too simplistic and unnecessarily offensive. Better, it is the residue of composite unresolved historic people-upon-people injustice left by our go-to strategy of ‘amnesia’.

In his excellent book, ‘The Healing of Nations’, Mark Amstutz says that one of the key strategies that governments take to deal with their tragic histories of people-upon-people crimes is ‘amnesia’. He writes,

‘Amnesia is based on neglect and even denial. Although forgetting is seldom defended as an official governmental policy, nations, like individuals, can only stand so much truth. Indeed states, like people, are not eager to acknowledge their errors, sins and shortcomings. Thus, while truth telling is important, some periodic forgetting may also be essential if a people are to be freed from captivity of the past.’ (19)

He gives as an example Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Poland’s first democratically elected prime minister who, in a speech to the Polish parliament in 1990 said,

“We draw a thick line between ourselves and the past.”(19)

I think that what Solidarity is struggling to describe is this awkward oppressive-lite ‘thick line’ that is supposed to cover over all of the residual hurtful aspects of our corporate narrative—but it doesn’t. They are trying to connect with the souls of victims and descendents of victims who are implicitly being asked to accept the strategy of ‘amnesia’ because it is the right thing to do.

It is not just ‘white privilege’.
It is my sense that this labeling is derogatory and hardly moves us the needed direction for healing. So let me come alongside of them and try to give a better description to the beast. See more