Our Follow-up on “Phony Forgiveness”
Timing is amazing sometimes. We posted a blog essay yesterday (just below this one) on three reasons why quick forgiveness is not necessarily “phony forgiveness” and we then came across this story: “Parents no longer forgive shooter of teen.”
Apparently, parents of a slain youth retracted their forgiveness toward the man who shot him.
We would like to claim that their first overture of forgiveness seems very sincere based on the news story. We have to remember our second point in the earlier blog post: psychological defenses are sometimes strong when tragedy strikes. As they lessen, anger rises. Now the deep work of forgiveness might begin….in time. And one more point: Even a retraction of forgiveness is not necessarily a final word on the matter.
Robert
