Relationships are like nations. They seek their own interests, store ammunition for future emergencies, dictate the terms of participation on a contractual basis, negotiate borders, and have a life of their own separate from the parties they comprise. One might say they are even like empires, seeking to expand their influence infinitely, territorially, and with force if necessary; and that they do so subtly through words, gestures, promises, strategy, and subterfuge. But then, this is not news to anyone who plays chess.

The commonality in the analogy between relationships and empires is obvious—both are human enterprises. The conclusion is that relationships are no more only about love than empires are only about statehood. Both are—or can be—totalitarian concepts. And both can fail.

In the Bible, like other sacred texts that guide behavior toward the good, there is the paradigm of forgiveness that buffers against human failure, somewhat like Christ’s life and sacrifice are. Are we not called to forgive seventy times seventy—especially when the wrong is so grave as to end the relationship at the first occurrence, such as forgetting that there even is a relationship?

The wisdom is that to ask and give forgiveness in such a circumstance is to step outside our humanness, to acknowledge the wrong and feel remorse, and by doing so redirect the sinful course of events back toward God. It is a cleansing ritual like the Sabbath, Lent, or Ramadan. To grant forgiveness is to consider the other person, God’s plan for them, what is wrong about the world, and what you can control that is right. To forgive becomes an act of worship, a mitzvah.

Most political scientists I know would not say the same when it comes to nations. Forgiveness would seem to obfuscate the rational choice principle that guides governments, certainly representative democracies, whereby elections and not the altruistic goodness of citizens safeguard against political failures such as corruption, ineptitude, or wrongdoing. The Supreme Court accepts metaphysical principles as the basis for legitimate federal action only insofar as secular, neutral principles can also be found. In an international arena, international law and war tribunals safeguard against failures, or crimes, against humanity.

Let me interrupt: can we learn anything about forgiveness from domestic politics and international relations?

Although forgiveness is a spiritual act of worship that brings us closer to the Divine, I believe it can be defended, too, on the basis that it brings people together, which is the basis of a political society. To ask for forgiveness involves leaning in, recognizing the gravity of what you have done, offering your hand in apology, and acknowledging your own vulnerability in the other person’s eyes. It is an extremely intimate, and political, action.

In Federalist Paper No. 52, James Madison wrote, "As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration [the legislature] should have an immediate dependence on, and intimate sympathy with, the people. Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured."

What I draw from Madison’s wisdom is that frequent elections ensure intimacy, or trust, between a citizen and her representative. I would argue that forgiveness plays the same role in relationships, providing an intimacy through which the relationship can continue despite mistakes or wrongdoings. Moreover, the frequency with which forgiveness is sought and obtained—or requested and granted—is critical to the deepening of that trust. Relationships are a matter of humility and honesty, not perfection or self-sufficiency.

You might have guessed by now that I am in a relationship where forgiveness is an issue. Errors have occurred, almost from the start. It is a relationship with little likelihood of survival, and I do not bemoan that, for to force its success under the circumstances would be to expunge my ideal of what a relationship should be. Yet, in it, I am face-to-face with the other person. I have asked forgiveness. He has given it—only then does something that requires him then to ask the same of me. Should I forgive him?

In another relationship, I did something for which I did not ask for or even acknowledge forgiveness, thinking it would be grounds for immediate termination of the relationship. Yet that only made matters worse—the relationship ended anyway, in part because of our lack of intimacy.

Let me make a parallel argument: empires sometimes can learn a thing or two from relationships. That is to say that the United States is in an imperial war with Iraq that contradicts some of the democratic values that Americans, as individuals, most cherish and desire in a government. In the current reality, both sides are to blame and have equal responsibility for the bloodshed, whichever one you believe ultimately started the war.

American troops are in Iraq, facing the people the Middle East in all their diversity, humanity, and righteous indignation. We have not asked forgiveness, and I don’t expect that we will. But what do Americans as a nation do, caught between their anger and incessant need to influence the Iraqis? Why should they forgive us? And on what grounds do we ask that the relationship continue? If we do not acknowledge that any wrongdoing was committed and make amends, I believe it only deepens our own culpability and prevents us trusting ourselves, let alone them trusting us.

One might caution that forgiveness is only an issue between people, not nations; and that there is no forgiveness or cleansing ritual that can right humanitarian wrongs committed by unelected, foreign entities against an entire people. America does not deserve "forgiveness," or even the simple privilege of continuing a relationship of any kind. Yet it is in the Middle East’s interests, too, to participate in the global economy and to trade and negotiate with the United States. Relationships involve at least two reasonable people, or rational actors, who come together for their own reasons, but in doing so sustain a relationship larger than both.

In the global choices that face the United States—as in the relationship choices that face me—the asking for and granting of forgiveness seem to me to be one way of sustaining the relationship for the good of both parties. This does not mean that the relationship should not change; it must, and the sooner the better. Sometimes ending the relationship—or all contact for a while—is the best thing. It is the choice of the wronged party to define the parameters of what forgiveness means according to the context.

I have found that by asking for and granting forgiveness we see more than the wrongdoing. We see the other person. We offer them—and ourselves—the choice to change, to begin again, and to do better. That hope keeps the relationship we have with ourselves alive, if it does nothing else.

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