Forgiveness

Love, Caves, and Healthcare CEOs

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

~ Luke 23:34 ~

Forgiveness is different. At times impossible. At others just plain annoying.

Opportunities to forgive abound, even if true forgiveness is quite rare. Just driving down the road can exercise this muscle covered in layers of laziness and chocolate cake. Especially during the Christmas season when joy may cover the world but it avoids parking lots at malls and Target.

Even still, slight aggressions accrued from behind a wheel or behind a screen rarely test the limits of forgiveness, seldom register as something we need to consider, even if for the sake of our souls. To experience true forgiveness, we must encounter a true enemy. Something along the lines of a betrayal, to you or to someone you love. Such a formidable foe besieges our ability and desire to give mercy or sympathy. Presses any possibility of pardon to its breaking point. A true enemy tempts us to move beyond the safety of our insensitivity and into the wilderness of forgiveness.

Recently, the CEO of a major healthcare provider was gunned down outside his hotel in Midtown New York City. In broad daylight. At a hotel my wife and I stayed at on our anniversary trip which included fourth row tickets to Phantom of the Opera and a full-blown blizzard.

As appalling as the heinous act was, the response online was greater still. Anger and merriment mixed with posts recounting healthcare betrayals and attitudes of “he got what he deserved.” Flooding my feed were headshots of the murdered father and battle cries heralding the assassin as a hero. Outrage damned the slain, and forgiveness fled the scene, for even suggesting the thought was simply criminal.

Now listen, I know anger. Intimately. It festers and ferments just below my surface, fueled by past wounds too stubborn to scar. It fosters fantasies of revenge and savage scenarios where my perpetrator is disrobed, fully exposed and only clothed in embarrassment and disdain. In me, anger rivals forgiveness, and at times, overruns my heart supposedly promised to Christ alone.

And yet, we must have limits. My anger must be leashed. I have to perimeter my indignation, refusing to trespass beyond the point of no return. And celebrating the death of someone, anyone, is simply too much. It speaks a grammar I don’t want to learn.