Published November 11, 1999
It is very difficult to forgive someone who has intentionally and consistently provoked your anger. The more someone offends you, the harder it is to act rationally toward that person. Anger that begins with a misunderstanding often leads to an eventual hatred between those involved, precisely because neither side can leave his or her emotions behind for even a few moments.
Fear is very similar to anger. When someone makes you truly afraid, you often feel changed by the experience. When the fear you must deal with persists, the level of sensitivity to such actions grows more pronounced. Fear can easily become the dominating force in a person's existence, causing them to view nearly everything they cannot control as a threat to their continued happiness.
Those who are angry often want to make others angry. Those who are afraid tend to want others to experience fear. The old clich� about the playground bully is a good example of this: The bully is said to beat up others either because he is angry at the world or because he fears that others will hurt him if he doesn't establish dominance first. If others are afraid of you, perhaps you will forget about your fear of them. If others are angry with you, then at least you
aren't the only one
who is angry.
In any community, there will be times when people become hurt, afraid or angry. The incident with Zeta Beta Tau two years ago is one example that affected many people on this campus in all three of these ways. The actions of Benjamin Smith this last year were frightening for most everyone in Bloomington, causing a great deal of revulsion and shock. There have surely been other examples that were deeply personal to some and not even noticed by others; there will undoubtedly be many others of the same sort in the future.
Forgiveness is a virtue that is easily forgotten amid the human struggle for revenge. While everyone theoretically loves to forgive, in practice it is one of the hardest things most people are ever asked to do. It is difficult to forgive a person who insulted, scorned or frightened you. It is difficult to not do unto another what has been done to you, for there is a satisfaction in revenge that forgiveness doesn't seem to offer.
When we feel that others have wronged us, we often begin to feel morally superior to them. Soon we develop the desire to pay others back for the evils they have done to us. Rather than try to teach and redeem them, we prefer to make those that have angered us suffer for their crimes. We become more concerned with wanting justice to be done than with wanting people to be improved.
Learning from past mistakes is one of the best ways to become better. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting what we have learned from past pain, but putting the pain behind us. Forgiveness means giving others the chance to make up for their previous mistakes, rather than holding a grudge that will never go away.
Everyone deserves forgiveness for something. All of us have made another afraid or angry. All of us have hurt someone at some point intentionally. If we forgive others, then we too can be forgiven. If we refuse to forgive others, we are condemning ourselves for our own mistakes. The choice is ours.
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The Value of Human Life
Faith in Organized Religion
Forgive and Forget
Updated Wednesday, 10-Nov-1999 23:42:58 EST
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Original Letter to the Editor