An Interview with Edgars and Kristine Mazis about Prayer Days 2009

By Lienite Bemere; Translated by Vineta Zale

    RIGA, Latvia – “To forgive is to set a prisoner free,” wrote Lewis Smedes in Forgive and Forget, “and discover that the prisoner was you.”

   

The annual Prayer Days were held in Latvia again this spring. The tradition of Prayer Days was initiated ten years ago when pastors from different denominations, Latvians and Russians from all over Latvia were invited by Charles Kelley (President of Bridge Builders International and Partners Foundation) to come together for fellowship and prayer in the Hotel Lielupe. “Then the surprise of the Lord was the prayer of forgiveness,” remembers Chuck Kelley.

    Since 1999, every year, pastors, their spouses, leaders of different Christian ministries and missionaries are invited to come together for three days of fellowship and prayer. The subject of this year’s Prayer Days was Forgiveness.

The main sessions were led by Edgars Mažis, the Pastor of Agenskalns Baptist

church, and his spouse, Kristīne Maže, a family counselor and future psychotherapist.

    The following is an interview with Edgars and Kristīne:

    You were leading these Prayer Days. Why did you decide to agree to this invitation?

    Kristīne: It took me a while to decide. I have had a dream, which I will probably fulfill when I will be very old, that I will have a house at the Sea and pastors would come to us to relax from their daily ministries. This event seemed to be very similar to my dream, and I thought that it would be a good possibility to test if this is something I would really want to do.

    Was your decision influenced by the theme of Prayer Days – Forgiveness?

    Kristīne: I think that every subject can become very important, if we talk about it deeper then just the “correct” phrases. In fact, every subject can bring us towards forgiveness, if we, for example, would have been talking about love. But, of course, the subject of forgiveness is very close to me because many years ago I translated Lewis B. Smedes’ book, Forgive and Forget into the Latvian language.

    Edgars: One reason why I agreed was the fact that this year no lecturers from abroad were invited. I have nothing against foreigners, but I think that our people are well educated and are able to lead such seminars. Maybe this aspect was not so important for the previous Prayer Days. Also, I have spoken about the subject of forgiveness often in the past. To learn how to forgive is a lifelong process.

    You have spoken about it to many different audiences, and Kristīne has translated a book. How would you describe forgiveness?

    Kristīne: It is a choice. People can make a choice from their side, but we ourselves do not have the power to forgive. God gives the strength and motivation, but He does not make the choice on our behalf. I myself am making the choice to forgive. Of course, forgiveness is a process. I have to understand whom I am forgiving, so the other person would also understand what he/she has done to me. If the other person does not understand what pain he has caused, then it is easy for him to do the same thing again. But if he understands that he has caused pain and specifically how, then the wrongdoer can feel pain about the deed as well.

    Edgars: I would say that to forgive is to refuse the compensation for the loss. The question is, “how I will even out something that has been done to me?” As individuals, we are able to be patient for a while and to forgive the wrongdoer when we receive little injuries, and not always think about Jesus. But if these injuries repeat, then human mechanisms fail. Then the inability to forgive switches off and we can’t forgive. This is why Jesus gave a new perspective to human forgiveness. Of course, there is another side effect to it after you have forgiven – relief. When we forgive, we care for ourselves.

    Kristīne: It is a circle. It is the understanding that I can forgive something that Jesus has forgiven me for. Then it is easier to forgive others.

    There are people who would say, “I want to forgive, but I can’t.”

    Kristīne: It is possible that someone sees himself as a white sheet of paper. I am the white one, and the other person is the black and the evil one. There is also the other extreme – to blame oneself and not ask others to take responsibility for their bad deeds. A healthy balance is someplace in between those.

    Edgars: The Scriptures tell us to forgive a brother seven times. No matter how many times you have been hurt, the choice does not depend on remembering. Seven times is not the quota for forgiveness either. You have to also think about the reasons why the brother is committing a sin for the first six times, and how genuine is the regret. Jesus is analyzing the brother who needs forgiveness. From the human point of view, forgiveness is an unjust thing, because it is

something you are giving to the other.

    Kristīne: Forgiveness gives freedom, because we start from ourselves. If we should start from the other person, we could not get any further. Instead, we need to start from us, and this is something that sets free.

    During Prayer Days you spoke about the role of emotions in the process of forgiveness – about identifying and understanding of emotions. What is the role of human emotions?

    Kristīne: Many Christians tend to think that you can’t be angry, that anger is evil. But anger is an emotion, and therefore is neither bad nor good. Anger helps us see the personal boundaries. For example, I get angry when someone violates my boundaries.

    Edgars: There are many people who easily take the blame. For these people forgiveness is a daily task, because they will need to ask for forgiveness every day. On the other hand, people with a high sense of self-confidence will have a hard time admitting that they have hurt somebody. One is scapegoat, the other self-righteous. One is to blame every time and for everything, the other one is never to blame.

    What is hatred and does it always come in the “set” with anger?

    Kristīne: There is a type of hatred that simply does not wish anything good to the other person. But this kind of hatred turns around - back to yourself and then he who has been hurt does not feel anything good in life at all. Hatred takes all the energy, it is destructive. If you try to not show hatred openly, if you can’t handle it, it hides “underground”.  For us Christians is often hard to accept that we are feeling hatred. We automatically want to stop it. But the most important thing to do at that moment is to pause and understand what it is that I am feeling. It is hard to feel emotions qualified to be bad. The emotions are not bad, and we are the ones choosing what we will do with them next. For example, the Bible story about Cain and Abel. Cain is angry, but God does not interfere. He is saying, “Be careful – sin is at the door.” God is not saying that anger is a sin. He is telling

us to choose what we will do. Anger is just an emotion “at the door”.

    Edgars: I think that anger is also shown when we choose not to make contact with the person who has hurt us. It is easy to cope with anger, if we do not need to live with it in the same structure – “under the same roof”. Gossip is also connected with displeasure with somebody. We do not gossip about people that we have good relationships with. We gossip about those we have bad relationships with. Through gossip we are pouring out our venom on others.

    In the Latvian language, hatred is a very powerful word. In Christian society we almost never use this word. People do not use the word “hatred”, because they are afraid of the power of it.

    Kristīne: Maybe we have put this word too high? It is anger that has been over-intensified. “Hatred” sounds devastating. Children say that they hate each other when they are arguing, but I have not heard Christians saying it to each other. But they are actually not saying that they are angry either. More often people choose not to say anything and not offend the other person. If the other person cannot handle himself/herself, then they take the blame in order to not bother the other one: I am strong and I can take it.

    If we are angry and are not telling it to the other person, then this anger turns inwardly and leads us into depression. There would be so many changes if people would start talking about what they feel.

    It is often that the things for which I cannot forgive myself, I also cannot forgive others.

    We are talking about the forgiveness, but what is forgiveness NOT?

    Edgars: This is not only a verbal exercise. If we are using the word “forgiveness” on daily basis, we are losing the true meaning of forgiveness.

    Kristīne: Forgiveness is not a patch; it is a surgery.

    How would you describe what happened during Prayer Days?

    Edgars: If we talk about forgiveness, then something was opened a little. Kristīne and I had a dialog talking about different aspects of forgiveness. It was not rehearsed beforehand. The form of dialog helped us to show a little bit of “household” forgiveness, not even talking about painful subjects like deportations or the suffering of people during Stalin’s time. We tried to show how men and women see the same situation.

    Participants of Prayer Days talked about forgiveness in small groups and prayed for it.

    It requires a lot of spiritual and physical strength to lead such event. It is necessary to be brave and talk about the subjects that the church is not talking about. You can hear more sermons from the pulpit talking about the forgiveness of Jesus towards us, and very seldom talking about mutual forgiveness and reconciliation.

    During Prayer Days we felt easy among brothers and sisters, and this is extremely important, because it is possible to talk about the forgiveness and do it easy, simply and through jokes. People felt encouraged and relaxed. There was no exaggerated seriousness or artificial ease. 

    Kristīne: I think it showed that forgiveness is part of our life and it is not only located outside the church walls but inside every person.