Author Archive: directorifi
Recovery and Forgiveness Follow Crash That Permanently Injures Doctor
KHON2, Honolulu, Hawaii – Dr. Theresa Wang was on her way home on Nov. 19, 2010, when an SUV heading in the opposite direction crossed the center line and crashed into her car. She suffered 22 fractures from her neck to her heels and was in a coma for more than a week.
Since then, Dr. Wang has undergone three rounds of major surgeries, incurred more than a million dollars in medical expenses, and is no longer able to practice medicine. Nonetheless, she has reached out to forgive the woman driving the SUV, Shakti Stream.
“As a doctor, I’ve seen people very bitter from all that,” Dr. Wang said. “But when you let it sink into yourself it just chews you up and you’re actually hurting yourself, and if I got bitter with her, I’m just letting her hurt me more, and I don’t really want to do that.”
Even though Stream’s insurance covered just a fraction of Dr. Wang’s medical bills, the doctor said she will not be pursuing a lawsuit against Stream.
“She’s just a young teacher, and my hope is that she will embrace some of my philosophy to help the community, help everybody else out and to really put a lot into those children. That’s what I’m really hoping. To me, that’s more than just paying my bills,” Dr. Wang said.
Read the full story: “Recovery, forgiveness after crash permanently injures doctor.”
Mother of Murder Victim Offers Forgiveness to Killer
The Lakewood Observer, Lakewood, OH – In nearly 14 years since her son’s death, Rachel Muha of Westerville, Ohio, has learned much about walking the path of forgiveness, even in the face of tragedy and adversity.
On May 31, 1999, her son Brian, 18, a freshman at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, and his friend Aaron Land, 20, were killed when intruders randomly broke into their off-campus house. The intruders assaulted them and ultimately killed them, leaving their bodies off an abandoned stretch of Route 22 in Washington County, Pa., nearly 20 miles from Steubenville. The killers were caught soon after and convicted.
While many in the community expected the families to rally for the death penalty, Rachel Muha–a devout Catholic– stepped forward in the courtroom during the sentencing of one of the convicted killers in 2000 to speak only of forgiveness, asking him to redeem the rest of the years in his life and that she would pray for his soul.
Muha has since turned “grief into love” and has established a foundation in her son’s honor: www.brianmuhafoundation.com.
Read the full story: “Public Lenten Event on Forgiveness.”
Is Forgiveness Always Appropriate?
A former student applied for a professorship this week. While she was interviewing, a professor, frowning, asked, “Is forgiveness always appropriate?” Following her answer, the professor was still frowning, even though she gave the correct answer.
Shall we address the question here? (All of you who might be asked the question in the future, take note: Just refer the frowning one to this blog post. Blame me for the answer so you do not have to take “the heat.”)
Is forgiveness always appropriate? Let us break down the answer a bit further first. When we pose the question, are we asking about the virtue of forgiveness itself or are we asking about a person? There is an important distinction here.
If our focus is on the virtue itself, we must then ask the question of all virtues (because forgiveness is a moral virtue), and we can do so by focusing on the question’s opposite: Is justice, for example, as one of the virtues, ever inappropriate? In other words, can you imagine a scenario in which you could be arrested for deliberately being just? If not, then justice is always appropriate, under all circumstances. Is patience ever inappropriate? What about kindness? I can hear someone say this, “Well, if someone is beating me over the head with a frying pan, I will not be kind.” My response: You can flee the abuse. You can try taking the frying pan out of the person’s hand. In either case, you can do so with kindness. Thus, even in this example, kindness is appropriate. It is not inappropriate if other virtues (justice, courage, temperance) come alongside kindness to help rescue the person from the head-banging.
My first point is this: Because all virtues are concerned with the moral good of human interaction, and because it is alway appropriate to exercise the moral good, and because forgiveness is a moral virtue, it is always appropriate to exercise forgiveness.
Now to our specific difference between the appropriateness of exercising the virtue as a virtue and a person’s psychology. Is it always appropriate for any given person to exercise forgiveness all the time? The answer here, in contrast to our first answer, is no, it is not always appropriate because: a) the offended person may be so shocked by what happened that he or she is not ready at this particular point in time to offer forgiveness; b) the offended person may need to learn more about what forgiveness is and is not so that forgiveness properly understood is exercised rather than some false form of it; and c) forgiveness is a supererogatory virtue, not demanded by society and therefore not demanded of any one person right now. It is the person’s choice whether to forgive or not on any given occasion.
Yes, if we are talking about the quality of this term, specifically its quality of being a moral virtue.
No, if we are talking about a particular person’s psychology, including the degree of hurt and the person’s familiarity with what forgiveness is, and the circumstances of the injustice, including its severity, its duration, and the time since it occurred.
Dr. Bob
A Heroic Vision for Ireland’s Churches
On Sunday evening, January 27, Dr. Robert Enright gave two talks in Mullingar, Ireland, one to clergy from a variety of Christian denominations and the other to the townspeople. Rev. Alastair Graham of the Church of Ireland hosted the event and Fr. Thomas Kilroy was the master of ceremonies for the talk with the townspeople.
Dr. Enright addressed a capacity crowd at All Saints Church, discussing what forgiveness is, why forgive, how we forgive, and how we can give forgiveness away to others in home, school, and place of worship. The goal of the meetings was to being a conversation on how forgiveness might form the basis for more unity among the various denominations within Mullingar–primarily Catholic, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Christian Fellowship, and Pentecostal. This is a heroic vision because of the historical tensions among Christian groups on the Island of Ireland. Forgiveness might prove to be a central unifying factor.
Mall Shooter Gets 20 years, Forgiveness
The Advocate, Baton Rouge, LA – An 18-year-old Baton Rouge man received a 20-year prison term and forgiveness after pleading guilty last week in a January 2012 shooting that wounded two innocent teenage bystanders outside the Mall of Louisiana.
The teen victims and their parents said inside the courtroom that they forgive Johnny Williams and pray that he will someday become a productive member of society.
The shooting occurred when Williams fired a weapon into a crowd during an argument with another teen. Caleb Day, 16, was shot in the right arm and chest and suffered nerve damage to that arm. Trenton Miller, 16, was shot in the left arm, and the bullet went into his hip and out his leg, prosecutors said. Day said that despite missing 50 days of school and a year of playing baseball because of his injuries, he holds nothing against Williams. Day’s father, David, said he forgives Williams and prays for him. Miller’s father, John, said, “With our whole hearts we forgive him.”
Read the full story: “Mall shooter gets 20 years, forgiveness”
