Unforgiven

The events of the last couple of weeks have caused me to ponder the subject of forgiveness. First it was the Imus thing, then the human destruction of Virginia Tech, and now Chevy Chase.

Huh? Well, I read this morning that the comedian Chevy Chase (Saturday Night Live in the old days, Fletch and Vacation movies) has revealed in an authorized biography that he was the victim of horrible physical and emotional abuse as a child. And he refuses to forgive his abusers:

"I always turn to it in my mind . . . I'll never forgive them. At their graves I didn't. It was too hard for me. You would think a grown man could shake it off, as the coffin was being lowered, to say, 'I forgive you.' I don't forgive."

I guess you can't really blame him. Just as you can't blame the families of the shooter's victims for hating the man who slaughtered their loved ones, or the basketball players deeply hurt by the words of a radio talk show host, who didn't know them and who they had probably had never heard of before.

But they are also missing the point. They misunderstand the purpose and nature of forgiveness.

In her excellent book Lord, I Want to Be Whole, author Stormie Omartian makes the case for forgiveness as one of the first steps of emotional healing. I am not familiar with what other faiths say about forgiveness. But as Christians, God instructs us to forgive those who have hurt us.

But why should we? The people who have hurt us don't deserve our forgiveness! Well, we don't deserve the forgiveness God grants us, either.

(continued)