It Doesn’t Hurt to Forgive
It’s easy to be angry. It’s easy to get riled up and mutter or to
make rude gestures and swear. It isn’t so easy to be forgiving.
And I’m not talking about turning the other cheek here or any
of that stuff. I’m talking about seeing it from the other person’s
point of view. And being forgiving.
I had an incident recently on vacation that basically involved a
very wet cyclist mouthing off because he thought someone
(no, it wasn’t me) had driven too close to him and nearly
forced him into a ditch. He was loud, rude, aggressive, out of
order, and foul-mouthed. I tried to speak to him reasonably on
behalf of the person he was being abusive to, and he gave me a
mouthful as well. Then he rode off and shook his fist at me,
which made his bicycle wobble and inside I laughed, a lot. I
found it easy to forgive him not in any religious sense but
because I could see he had chosen the wrong vacation.
He had obviously been persuaded that the cycling vacation
would be fun, but it was in hilly, really hilly, countryside, and
it had rained all that day. He was tired, wet, aching, and very
unhappy. How could I not forgive him? If I had foolishly
chosen that vacation, I too would have been grumpy, ready for
a fight, fed up, touchy, and raw. I felt quite sorry for him and
could sense a great deal of his unhappiness. Yes, he was in the
wrong to use such foul language—especially in front of chil-
dren. Yes, he was ready for a fight and intimidating and
aggressive. But he was also me or you or anyone else in that
situation—cold, wet, miserable. And who is to say we would-
n’t have lost our temper if we, too, had chosen the wrong
vacation?