The Most Pressing Question

The most pressing question that has tortured me for the last month is: how do you forgive someone who betrays your trust and how does that impact your work relationship?

I feel chaotic ambivalence toward the question and every answer I can generate, but so far I believe that I should:


- refuse to believe, as my instinct tells me, that the person *is* defined by this action,

- don't end-run around them, or avoid situations where we should (given the structure of the institution) work together,

- never talk to others within the institution (or in the social circle of the other person) about how they wronged me,

- don't rehearse the story of what has already happened as a way of explaining their current actions or their future choices,

- do rehearse the story

and while these answers open me up to the possibility of what might be, I also believe that I should:

- acknowledge that I have been hurt and I am hurting and forgiving will be a constant process,

- choose to help them in ways that are consonant with the concerns that I continue to have about those particular actions (unless, of course, they repent of those actions),

- choose to focus my best efforts partnering with people I trust more fully,

- continue to process my ongoing decisions with faithful friends who will tell me the truth not just commiserate and take my side.