I'm in a little bit of a quandary today. Let me tell you why. Don Imus is in hot water because of some comments that he made on his radio program about the women's Rutgers basketball team.
His comments were wrong, even despicable.
He apologized this past week and today on his program expressed remorse and contrition and has asked to meet with the team members and families.
Several are asking for his resignation.
The quandary is this: how far does a person have to go before he/she is forgiven?
Of course this question doesn't apply to things that are done that are against the law. These things must be punished.
When someone says something stupid and out of place, even cruel and inhuman, and then apologizes, how far does that person have to go before he/she is forgiven by the public in general?
And isn't it always true that someone who picks up an offense (i.e. those who are calling for Don Imus resignation) are harder on the offender that those who in whom the offense was actually directed?
Interesting. Are we becoming a society where forgiveness (both given and received) is impossible to act out?
What are we going to ask people to do who say stupid things? Cut off an arm? Have them give up on life? What will it take to satisfy those who are "offended?"
Again, what Imus said was wrong, please don't misunderstand me.
But he apologized. Should not the "punishment" fit the "crime"?
To forgive another person from the heart is an act of liberation. We set that person from the negative bonds that exist between us. We say, "I no longer hold your offense against you."
But there is more. We also free ourselves from the burden of being the "offended one."
As long as we do not forgive those who have wounded us, we carry them with us, or worse, pull them as a heavy load. The great temptation is to cling in anger to our enemies and then define ourselves as being offended and wounded by them.
Forgiveness, therefore, liberates not only the other but also ourselves.
Is it too late for our society to become a society of "forgivers?"
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1 comment:
I sure hope it's not too late for people to learn how to forgive. It's SO hard to forgive people sometimes, especially when they don't seem to change. It's hard to watch them commit the same mistake time after time. Sometimes we have to apply the tough love principle in hopes that the person will see what they've been doing and try to change. I've been reading a book lately called "Wounded marriages can be healed, Hope for the separated," by Gary Chapman. The part I was reading today made the most sense yet. It talks about how we put up with things in the name of love or out of fear. How "putting up" with sinful behavior is never God's way, that he loves us too deeply for that. Love is not letting someone step on you. Love is caring so much for their well-being that you refuse to play into their behavior. It goes on to say that many people are healed when someone loves them enough to stand up to their inappropriate actions. This is how I see it, we can forgive people for things they've done to us, but it's also up to us to try to help them to not do it again, and we don't have to take it again either. Love is willing to draw a line and refuse to accept someone's behavior as normal.
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