On Easter Sunday the CBS Sunday Morning show explored the concept of forgiveness. One woman has forgiven the man who killed her son in a drunken driving crash, and now embraces him during public events where the two talk to high school students about drinking and driving.
Yet a parent of another boy killed in the same crash says his son will have died for nothing if he, the father, was to to offer any forgiveness whatsoever.
What is your view? Watch the video in the link below to hear from religious leaders and others on the case for forgiveness.
(You can also read the full story at CBS)
Thanks to Malcolm W. Henley for submitting the story link!
forgive.. forgive.. forgive.. everybody and everything — as difficult as it may be — for God would forgive us of all of our sins, so long as we acknowledge them and Him. Evil is the absence of good, and it exists because of a lack of good.. if good is to triumph over evil in the long-term, we must do as much good as we can in the face of evil. look at the ‘good’ the two of them are contributing to the world now.
I 100% agree with what CSN207 said. It’s all about forgiveness. In fact, I think there is a strong argument to be made that forgiveness is one of the most important lessons that arises over and over again for each of us to learn.
I think that forgiveness heals the forgiver and helps the forgiven start to forgive him/herself.
If it feels better in the short term not to forgive, then that’s fine too, after all, anger and revenge feels so much better than the feeling of powerlessness grief gives us. It is staying stuck in anger and revenge that harms us at a cellular level, it only harms us, not the other person.
I hope the father can one day find the courage to forgive so he can move through grief, anger and revenge towards feeling joy every time he thinks about his son.
For me, forgiveness has nothing to do with religion, I think forgiveness is a decision to change our way of thinking about a particular subject in order to feel better about that subject. For me, the decision to forgive is biologically vital for a happy, healthy life, while I am focused in my physical form.
Withholding forgiveness does not punish the person who wronged you. It doesn’t give meaning to tragedy. It just festers inside. Like Gulaga said, it doesn’t have to be religious, and isn’t for me either. I personally am not that good at forgiveness, as much as I try, so I have a lot of sympathy for the father who can’t forgive. I hope some day he will.
I am currently working on forgiving the person that killed my sister. I has taken me 9 years to get to the point where I don’t want to have revenge on this person. I have had dreams where I have forgiven him but when I am awake and miss her it is hard to not want to wish ill things upon him. Now I wish to not ever see this person and pray that my heart can forgive even though it cannot forget.