Forgiveness
Living Among the Dead
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
-Ghandi
On public radio the other morning there was a story about three men who were falsely accused of a crime and spent forty years in jail for it. Their accuser, who says he was coerced into his statement by the police, lived with the weight of his false witness for all that time until he just couldn't bear it anymore. He finally recanted, and the three men were freed. One of the men sat down with their accuser in an interview and forgave him.
"Oh, I forgive you, man," he said. "I'll never forget, but I forgive you. We good now."
Think about that. Forty years, probably your best years, flushed down a prison toilet, irretrievable, irreplaceable.
The two talked in the voices of older men as they discussed the events that occurred when they were younger men, just more than children. The forgiver seemed to be doing much better than the forgiven, whose voice was low, as if he were staggering under a tremendous load and always would be. The forgiver seemed, well, freed.
One of the themes, perhaps the main theme of Living Among the Dead, is, who can be forgiven and what can they be forgiven of? When old Pierre Carriere sits down on his balcony across from the Lafayette Cemetery on Prytania Street and reflects on his life, he has a lot to ponder. And although he is obviously surrounded by people who love him, they have no idea of what he did in his youth, the atrocities and the betrayal. In one entry of his memoirs, he says of a particular incident,
Well, is there?
We were having lunch one day with our son in Seattle. Our waitress had a tattoo on her inner wrist that read, 70 x 7. These four keystrokes are the formula, for those who follow the teachings of Christ, for how many times one is required to forgive his neighbor for an offense. I've heard it explained that this was considered a hypothetical big number back then, the way of saying "a gazillion."
But who of among us even wants to do it once? I suspect that everyone wants forgiveness. Fewer want to forgive.
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
-Ghandi
On public radio the other morning there was a story about three men who were falsely accused of a crime and spent forty years in jail for it. Their accuser, who says he was coerced into his statement by the police, lived with the weight of his false witness for all that time until he just couldn't bear it anymore. He finally recanted, and the three men were freed. One of the men sat down with their accuser in an interview and forgave him.
"Oh, I forgive you, man," he said. "I'll never forget, but I forgive you. We good now."
Think about that. Forty years, probably your best years, flushed down a prison toilet, irretrievable, irreplaceable.
The two talked in the voices of older men as they discussed the events that occurred when they were younger men, just more than children. The forgiver seemed to be doing much better than the forgiven, whose voice was low, as if he were staggering under a tremendous load and always would be. The forgiver seemed, well, freed.
One of the themes, perhaps the main theme of Living Among the Dead, is, who can be forgiven and what can they be forgiven of? When old Pierre Carriere sits down on his balcony across from the Lafayette Cemetery on Prytania Street and reflects on his life, he has a lot to ponder. And although he is obviously surrounded by people who love him, they have no idea of what he did in his youth, the atrocities and the betrayal. In one entry of his memoirs, he says of a particular incident,
I wish now that I could beg her forgiveness, that poor, broken girl, that girl who I helped break. If St. Peter opens the gates and she is paraded silently before me, mute testimony to what I did, what I participated in. And I see her and I’m denied admission, dismissed to spend eternity in fire, I will have no answer for him and he will close his book with a slap and a scowl. Her face haunts me as I’m sure our faces haunt her, our slack, huffing, smirking faces, her despairing face. Oh dear God, is there any such thing as forgiveness? For one who is truly sorry and has no means to ever make it right again?
Well, is there?
We were having lunch one day with our son in Seattle. Our waitress had a tattoo on her inner wrist that read, 70 x 7. These four keystrokes are the formula, for those who follow the teachings of Christ, for how many times one is required to forgive his neighbor for an offense. I've heard it explained that this was considered a hypothetical big number back then, the way of saying "a gazillion."
But who of among us even wants to do it once? I suspect that everyone wants forgiveness. Fewer want to forgive.
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