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Smedes's scheme sounded like just so much more pop-psych to me: A numbered list of stages combined with lots of you-can-do-it encouragement.

Then it happened. Just a few days after our interview, somebody I trusted let me down and, when I complained, accused me of violating our trust. We were unavoidably separated over the weekend. As I indulged in introspection, I watched Smedes's four stages march by: Friday night I hurt. By Saturday morning my active imagination was creating unspeakable horrors for my friend to suffer. Saturday night I was able to talk the matter through with a confidence-keeping third party. And on Sunday morning healing arrived. I had only to wait for Monday to seek reconciliation. I'm a believer.

Many students are bitter about a school, church or other institution that has treated them unfairly. I asked Professor Smedes how someone in that situation should go about forgiving.

Smedes: Institutions are myths, just as corporations are legal myths. They have a terrible reality, but when you go looking for them, all you can find is a building, a board room, a secretary, or a dean.

HIS: Let's say a student has completed three years of college and is having difficulty pulling together the money for his fourth year. When he goes to the business office to get cleared for registration, there's a foul-up. He knows the money is coming, but he can't convince the clerk with the cat's-eye glasses. So he misses the fall term of his senior year. He is hurt and angry at the institution. How would you help him deal with that hurt?

Smedes: I would try to get him to make sure he knows who hurt him.

HIS: Not just the faceless university?

Smedes: Yes, he's got to know whether someone did something unnecessary to him, something terribly unfair that could have been avoided.

This person may have to discover the painful lesson that we live in a world that sometimes hurts us, yet nobody needs to be forgiven. He may have to distinguish between things that are appropriate for forgiving and things that are appropriate for saying, "This is the way it is, and I got stung."

My son had an experience just like that recently. He stayed out of school and worked for a while. He's a dedicated Christian who gave away more than 25 percent of his salary. When he went back to school he had no job—and no savings. He'd given his money away.

So he asked for a student grant. They didn't ask, "How much did you give away?" And they didn't ask, "How much will you be making in the coming year?" They asked, "How much did you make last year?" They told him he couldn't have a grant.

He's still angry about it. But I think he's come to see that in a world of big places and computers, you can get caught in a squeeze, and there's nothing to do but wait it out. I don't think he had anybody to forgive.

Sometimes maturing is more necessary than forgiving.

We also talked about students who were hurt by a parent who has died or disappeared. These students continue to hurt because the person a child should be able to trust most abused them physically, emotionally, or even sexually. These students travel an especially difficult road to forgiveness and emotional healing.

HIS: How would you help a hurting student forgive a dead or absent parent?

Smedes: That kind of hurt is as hard to heal as any past pain. First of all, I would help that person accept the fact that it's going to take time.

HIS: So time is an important factor in forgiveness?

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December (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46