Extreme Examples Do Not Invalidate Forgiving
For the past week, I have been in a world conflict zone doing workshops on forgiveness education for teachers. In each of the workshops, which now number eight, in this region I invariably get this kind of question:
“We are in a high conflict, oppressive situation. One of my students saw his brother get killed. You tell me how I will have him forgive the murderer.”
The basic point is that the hurt is too large for the student, or anyone else, to consider forgiving in such a context.
A further point is a false assumption: If forgiveness cannot be successfully applied to the enormous injustices of the world, then forgiveness is weak and useless.
I must disagree and do so with an analogy. Suppose a person wants to start to become physically fit after a decade of decadence with no exercise whatsoever. Suppose now that a trainer gives the person one and only one directive: You must start by running a marathon. It just would not work. Does this invalidate the quest for physical fitness, rendering the goal weak and useless?
You see, the questioners start with the marathon of forgiveness and do not see that we should not start there. We need to build the forgiveness fitness one small step at a time. Just because a student cannot forgive the murderer of his brother today does not invalidate his trying to forgive his friend who failed to show up for gathering yesterday.
Small steps first are necessary and they help us build toward bigger forgiveness later. This is why forgiveness education is so important. It helps students explore what forgiveness is and is not in the quiet of a classroom…….before tragedy strikes and the unjustly-treated person now must stumble to ask: What is forgiveness? Should I forgive or not forgive? Am I excusing the one who acted badly? How do I go about forgiving? How long might it take?
We need forgiveness education…………..now.
Robert
