by Calsue Murray

Created on: December 24, 2008

Forgiving

Throughout all the millennia of human existence, from millennium to millennium some, among us, who are "experts" on our spirituality and/or our psychiatric and psychological characteristics, have rendered preachments that we ought to be forgiving of those of our fellow humans who intentionally abuse, maim, kill and commit atrocities.

Throughout the years of my own existence, I have consistently argued against the dictum that we be automatically forgiving of the criminals among us. From the moment that I first heard of the preachment, contained in holy books, that advocated, "An eye for an eye," I have been in total agreement with it.

As a child, I asked my father, who was a minister, what we ought to do when we were being abused and had no more "cheeks to turn." I could not accept his advice to keep "turning my cheeks" and pray for my abuser. I just did not believe that my prayers would stop an abuser from abusing me. I did not know then, and I do not know now, what to do with my anger and outrage at being abused.

Sad to say, my childhood convictions, though arguably childish, were not entirely mistaken. Throughout all the decades of my lifetime, I have continually witnessed, observed and experienced unrelentingly abusive crimes and atrocities being committed by un-repentant abusers.

Often, it has been lectured to me that persons who sincerely regret their abusive behavior and their crimes against others deserve to be forgiven. I have often heard the quotation, "Vengeance, is mine, Says the Lord." Although I came to agree that true repentance should be acknowledge, I still had the problem of overcoming my anger and outrage at abusers and criminals. I have always had doubts that sincere repentance ever really occurs.

My three brothers and I all served in the U. S. Armed Forces during one, or another, of the major wars in which these United States of America has been involved since the birth of the eldest of us. All four of us served in the U. S. Armed Forces and were fortunate enough to return to civilian life afterwards.

To my knowledge, none of the aggressor nations against whom this country waged war has ever honestly expressed repentance for its aggressive actions. On the other hand, for none of those fully-substantiated instances wherein it was the United States of America that initiated, or perpetrated war, has the United States been truly repentant. Therefore, none of the nations who were responsible for the wars, in which my brothers and I served,

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