Forgiveness:  Is  it  overrated?   

In the Bible in Ephesians, chapter one, verse 32, it says; “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.” In the Lord's Prayer we say to God: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” In Colossians,, Chapter 3, verse 13, it says; “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.” According to the Bible, we are to forgive whatever grievances we might have against others. No limits are stated, no conditions given. 

 My question to my readers is this; “Should we forgive everyone who brings harm to us, our families and our friends and to others in general?” All of us struggle to some degree with the issue of forgiveness.

 There are two reasons why some people are willing to forgive those who harm them in some way or another. Relationally, forgiveness is the giving up of any resentment that we have toward the person who harmed us. It's a means of releasing our anger, our rage and our bitterness towards that person. It's treating the other person as if they hadn't wronged us in the first place. This is why we find it so difficult to forgive that person.

There is another side to forgiveness. It is the legal side. Debts must still be paid. Executioners who put murderers to death are technically guilty of murder, and there is a penalty for murder. But even on the legal side the penalty can be waived in the interests of justice. Soldiers deliberately kill soldiers of another nation in the interests of peace among mankind. None of them are punished for the killing they do in the name of their country.

Let me say from the beginning, I do not forgive those who deliberately harms me for their own gratification. If a man robs me, I will not forgive him. If he harms me or any member of my family, I will not forgive him. If a man kills another for no justifiable reason and he is sentenced to death for that murder, if I am satisfied that he is guilty, I will not shed a tear for him.

Robert Payne, in his book The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler said in part; “Hitler told Himmler that it was not enough for the Jews simply to die; they must die in agony. What was the best way to prolong their agony? Himmler turned the problem over to his advisers, who concluded that a slow, agonizing death could be brought about by placing Jewish prisoners in freight cars in which the floors were coated with quicklime which produced excruciating burns. The advisers estimated that it would take four days for the prisoners to die, and for that whole time the freight cars could be left standing on some forgotten siding Finally it was decided that the freight cars should be used in addition to the extermination camps.” unquote

They were also responsible for the collective murder of hostages, reprisal raids, forced labor, euthanasia of the disabled, starvation, exposure, medical experiments, and terror bombing, and in the concentration and death camps, and as a result, the Nazis murdered over 20 million men, women, handicapped, aged, sick, prisoners of war, forced laborers, camp inmates, critics, homosexuals, Jews, Slavs, Serbs, Germans, Czechs, Italians, Poles, French, Ukrainians, and many others. Among those slaughtered by the Nazis were 1,000,000 were children under eighteen years of age.

Should anyone today belatedly forgive these two men who also instigated the slaughter of almost six million Jews in extermination camps? I hardly think so.

Can mass murderers and serial killers be forgiven? Here are a few known famous serial killers that are known to history, such as Ted Bundy, the Hillside Strangler, and Charles Manson just to name a few?

Killers like the ones I have just mentioned can’t be forgiven because evil is all they knew when they committed their crimes and they enjoyed doing what they did to end the lives of their victims. So what kind of family members of victims are so readily willing to forgive killers like Hitler, Himmler and the three serial killers I just mentioned?

Sue Norton lives in Arkansas City, Kansas. She received terrible news during a phone call from her brother in January 1990. Her much beloved, father, Richard Denny and his wife Virginia were found murdered in their home. Sue’s father and his wife were shot to death in their isolated Oklahoma farmhouse to cover up a crime that netted the killer a mere $17.00 and an old truck.

Sue sat through the trial of Robert Knighton. She was confused about how she should feel. She said that everyone in the courtroom was consumed with hate. They all expected her to feel the same way but she said that couldn’t hate the way they did because it didn’t feel good to hate the killer of her father and his wife.

Robert Knighton was convicted and sentenced to death. A hearing was set up by the Parole Board to decide whether or not they should recommend to the governor that the killer’s life should be spared.

Sue gave an eloquent speech to the parole board pleading to save this killer’s life. Many of the parole board members were in tears but they voted for death anyway. The killer was executed by the state of Oklahoma on May 27, 2003.

What prompted sue to forgive the killer of her father and his wife?

She visited the killer in jail. At first he refused to look at Sue. She asked him to turn around and he answered, "Why would anyone want to talk to me after what I have done?" Sue replied, "I don’t know what to say to you. But I want you to know that I don’t hate you. My grandmother always taught me not to use the word hate. She taught me that we are here to love one another. If you are guilty, I forgive you.” unquote

Now obviously, forgiveness was ingrained in Sue by her grandmother when Sue was a child. It is hard to change one’s ways when certain advice is given to you when you are a child.

But suppose her grandmother had not spoken to her thusly as a child. Would she still have forgiven this killer? The Parole Board and the governor of the State didn’t think that what the killer had done to her father and his wife merited any form of mercy at all.

Life is never the same after a murder. The best survivors can do is try to accept their burden and search for a way to honor the victim. Most do not believe that forgiving the murderer is doing justice to the victim. In actual fact to them, forgiving the murderer is akin to ignoring the death of the victim. As a matter of fact, many such persons spend more time forgiving the murderer than grieving the death of a loved one. I suppose they feel better being what they believe is a better person than the average person who is not so willing to forgive someone who has murdered a love one.

Some people hold that only the victim can grant forgiveness. In the case of murder, therefore, there can be no forgiveness.

What would such forgiveness accomplish?  It wouldn’t change a thing  about the crime; its morality or moral consequences or the mind of perpetrator. The murderer would still be accountable to his or her God and to the civil authorities and will still be punished by imprisonment or by death.

There are people who commit less onerous crimes against us and we are faced with the problems of deciding whether or not we should forgive them. Here are some of them.

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. Perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to keep the scheme going. The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors. Usually, the scheme is interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses because a Ponzi scheme is suspected or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. However one such scammer didn’t get away with it for many years before he was turned in to the authorities by his own son. The crook I am speaking of is Bernie Madoff.

This crook was the greatest of all the Ponzi scammers. He managed to steal an astonishing total of $65 billion from his investors. His investment firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, operated for almost 49 years and at its peak was one of the Wall Street stalwarts. Although the Securities and Exchange Commission had previously investigated him, it was only when his firm was about to collapse that he was exposed by his own son. Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

I can’t imagine why any of his victims would ever forgive this man for what he did to them. Many of his victims became destitute. Many of them lost their homes also.

Karla Homolka pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter and agreed to serve 12 years for her role in the rape, torture and death of Ontario schoolgirls Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, as well as that of her own 15-year-old sister Tammy.

In exchange for her testimony, she testified against ex-husband Paul Bernardo, who was convicted in 1995 on two counts of first-degree murder and later declared a dangerous offender—a designation that keeps him behind bars indefinitely.

Homolka never made even an oblique apology to either the French or Mahaffy families and remained preoccupied with her own circumstances which clearly is evidence, some say, that her state of mind has not changed since she was first convicted in 1993.

Why would anyone forgive this horrible woman? Apparently someone did. He married her. They then they left Canada for the Antillrs. 

One of my grandchildren was molested when she was five years of age by one of my best friends who would often come to our home for a visit. We called the police and he spent a year in prison for his deed. I never forgave him and neither did any of my friends who also used to be friends with this man. His crime was a terrible breach of trust and that kind of breach is unforgivable.

 Robert Alan Eagleson (born April 24, 1933—the same year I was born) is a disbarred Canadian lawyer, convicted felon in two countries, former politician, hockey agent and promoter. Clients that he represented included superstars Bobby Orr and Darryl  and he was the first executive director of the NHL Players Association.  

 

He stole money from some of the hockey player’ pensions which is also a terrible breach of trust and for this reason, on January 6, 1998, at his trial, Eagleson pled guilty to three counts of mail fraud in Boston and was fined $700,000. Later that year, he pleaded guilty in Toronto to three more counts of fraud and embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars of Canada Cup proceeds in 1984, 1987 and 1991.  He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, of which he served six months at the  Mimico Correctional Centre in Toronto.  Soon after his guilty plea, Eagleson was removed from the Order of Canada, though he continued to wear his lapel pin during the court proceedings before his sentencing.

When he was sued by one of the hockey players, I was asked to serve this crook with the court papers. When I arrived at his home, he told me that he had already been served with the court document. I knew that was a lie because I was the only person who was serving him the document. I left the document I had just served on him with the comment, “How fortunate you are. Now you have a copy of the court document to use as you see fit.”

All Summit Series events for Team Canada so far have involved only the players and coaches. Eagleson was originally invited to the 40^th  anniversary reunion of the Summit Series scheduled in September 2012 with the support of most members of Team Canada, however due to opposition from Phil Esposito, Brad Park and Dennis Hull.   Eagleson was disinvited. It has been suggested that some players still held a grudge not only because of Eagleson's fraud and abuse, but also his lack of contrition.

Strangely enough, some players were willing to forgive him but the majority were not—and why should they?

There are many, many times when one should not extend forgiveness for crimes committed. However, there are also times when bygones should be bygones. 

I remember an event that took place years ago. A police officer had passed some private information about me to a lawyer. When I learned about it, I filed a complaint against the police officer. A meeting was scheduled with the officer, me and the head of the Police Complaints Bureau. The officer immediately apologized to me and I knew his apology was sincere. I got out of my chair and walked over to him and shook his hand and told the Inspector that I was withdrawing my complaint. The officer and I later became good friends after that.

Another police officer did a real wrong to me and put me through much grief. He was offered the opportunity to back off but he refused. For the next seven years, on and off, I investigated this man’s background and after he became the chief of police, I passed the information I uncovered to the mayor of the city. He in turn passed it on to his city council. A fitness hearing was scheduled and I was invited to address the city council. I denounced their chief of police and an hour later, he was dismissed without pension. The last I heard of this man was that he was a security guard somewhere.

If he had apologized to me and I was convinced that he was sincere, I would have let the matter drop right then and there but since he was adamant in his intentions to do me harm, I went out of my way to destroy his police career and I succeed in doing just that. He never dreamed that someone like me could hold a grudge for so long a period of time.

Henry Ward Beecher said, “I can forgive but I cannot forget. This is another way of saying I cannot forgive.”

Strangely enough, prior to my act of revenge, there wasn’t a day in which this police officer wasn’t on my mind. After I destroyed him, I rarely ever thought of him. I still cannot forget what this former police officer did to me and for this reason, I would never forgive him.

As far as I am concerned, if you are willing to forgive those that serious harm you, you risk that person repeating the offence either to you or someone else.