The capacity for forgiveness.

[MattBowron]

i myself have wanted to forgive those who hurt and abused me when i was young

when i was 6 a teacher abused me by showing me around like a circus-performing-act, making me humiliate myself instead of telling me what was and what wasn't appropriate. He made other kids laugh at me, call people up and stuff.

When I was 7 a group of guys tried to break in upon me when I was changing in the toilets for sports class, tried to break the door down, hooting and screaming at me. I screamed back, cowering in the back so much I nearly **** myself.

When I was 8 or so, a male doctor felt my genitals when I told him not to, in front of my mother.

When I was 9 a guy used to chase me across the school with his brother, hold me down, kick me in the ribs, punch me in the face, try to strangle me to death. He'd chase me around all the time, and attempted to drown me at the swimming pool on many occasions.

Bullying continued from years 1 to 12.

At year 9 I became paranoid, and people bullied me about my paranoia at the time, making it worse.

At year 10 I attempted suicide.

In a bookstore at first year at tafe, a guy grabbed my arm and tried to pull me towards him just because I said 'g'day' to him.

Last year a bunch of teens pelted bits of brick at me and chased me down the street.

I wanted to forgive them, but another part of me just wanted to kill all the ****ers who messed me up in my life.

[Asher]

Forgiving is a sign of weakness.

[onodera]

Holy ****, Grandpa. Have you ever thought about going back to Maine with a meat tenderizer in your suitcase?

[Docfeelgood]

Takes a big man to forgive.

[Docfeelgood]

Originally posted by Asher
Forgiving is a sign of weakness.

so are peace loving Muslims, but what is your point?

[Zevico]

Originally posted by Grandpa Troll
I have never forgiven what happened to me as a child. Abuse and too much of it.

My family moved to the deep woods of Maine from southern Maine via Aroostook County. From 9 years old until it culminated at 13, I was physically and emotionally abused. Beaten,pissed on,torn clothes,split lips, testacles kicked, and then at 13 held down, beaten mercilessly while the crowd cheered on and as I was having my eyes closed by punches from 4 boys, kicked continously in ribs, which succomed and broke,and whole face on fire, one of them stood and backed up 6-8 feet, 2 held my face firmly locked forward and the boy full sprint, punted my 3 front teeth through my upper lip. It felt like fire, like a live wire had been shoved through the top of my head. I couldnt move, blood everywhere, the crowd silenced and the bullies left me with what would take , IIRC, 35 stitches in lips to close my face up. I think it took me 2 hours to get I still have nightmares on occassion, heck, im 49 so this was 36 years ago.

I wish I had the capacity, have asked God to help me, and yet, I can see their faces, the ringleaders, and you know, its just not as easy as folks say.."Forgive them, but thats what i try to do. God knows the depth,bredth and width of my pain. My sweetheart, she continues to remind me to move forward. I do try, and when an occasion arises, say when i feel threatened, that memory is like a snap of I didnt have a so called normal childhood, you see, one has to go through abuse, true torment, to understand. You search your soul and blame yourself, you feel woefully inadequate, cant tell you how many nights i cried myself to sleep as a young boy.

I do want to forgive them one is dead, 2 were in prison at one point and a coouple others who were involved are still back there.

Thats why I get so insensed when I hear about abuse.

So about forgiveness, it has to be hard, but one must seek to forgive those who robbed from you a piece of your life.

I have a wonderful family and thank God for that. Many years I tried to cover my shame and pain with drugs and alchohol, my choice, better than living a nightmare, at the time. I was an alcoholi at 15 and drug abuser by 16.

But now I seek to move forward each day.

I pray and figure, we all have a burden of some sort, mine is this major one and ask God to please help me.

I have never gotten counseling, i dont need a person telling me how to feel, I know i shouldnt carry this and dont need to have a college educated man over simpify a lost childhood, but it is what went on and now, you know how many grown people deal with a terrible attrocity for a lifetime.

I dont ever want pity nor do i expect many to completely understand. I dont expect many lived with daily beatings, daily torment and sleepless night due to reoccuring nightmares.

But one day my hope is I can truly forgive those that stole my life.

Brother Bruce

I don't think you can forgive someone who hasn't apologised to you and then changed the way in which he or she behaved accordingly.
If they ever do that, I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive them. But I am cynic. I don't believe people change, at least from bad to good. So most likely you won't be faced with that situation.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by MrFun


Personal stories about the better angels of our nature are just as welcome in this thread as historical stories are.

Forgive the Prop-8 voters Mr. Fun. Show your better angels.

[MrFun]

MattBow and Grampts, you two went through a lot!

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by MrFun
I wasn't the only one to appreciate that story of human compassion and forgiveness in that light.

Compassion, yes. Forgiveness, for what? Fighting for their country and way of life (no matter how misguided)? "Holier than thou" yankees need to remember that none of the antislavery northern states wanted the freed slaves to move there and pollute their racial purity.

One of the speakers/historians in that documentary portrayed it also as a moving example of a person's capacity to forgive others.

The blind leading the blind IMO.

As for your PM, I do my debating in public. If you've got something to say about my comment, say it here.

EDIT: apparently I'm now on MF's ignore list. ZOUNDS and YOIKS!

[SlowwHand]

Black Confederates.

http://www.37thtexas.org/html/BlkHist.html

[MrFun]

What does that have to do with the thread's topic, Slowwy?

The thread is about stories or examples of extraordinary displays of forgiveness and of the better angels of our human nature.

[Zkribbler]

I remember on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysberg reading about a reunion of veterans at the 50th anniversary of Gettysburg.

Each day was marked by a re-enactment of that's days battle. Ancient soliders, some dressed in blue, some in gray, would replay the key battles of that day, and then end embracing each other.

On the third day, Picketts Charge was re-enacted. Of course, the charge was shorten to just a hundred yards or so. When the old men in gray approached the stonewall which marked their furthest advance on the last day of battle and reached out to embrace their former enemies, fists flew. "You didn't come over this wall in '63, you sons of *****es, and you ain't comin' over it now!"

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by MrFun
What does that have to do with the thread's topic, Slowwy?

The thread is about stories or examples of extraordinary displays of forgiveness and of the better angels of our human nature.

You brought it up. If you can't see the correlation, that's your problem.

[MattBowron]

MrFun thanks for your concern,

I guess the only good thing my bullying experiences gave me, was that it made me really question "why are there bullies in the world?" which led me to later question "why is there conflict?". It's that which has led me to attempt to write novels expounding ideas that attempt to link the various ideologies, lifestyles, cultures and histories of humanity together to attempt to translate the different cultures as they've emerged from points of divergence.

In essence I'm attempting to write about how different beliefs, lifestyles and such emerged, using a fictional objective view, trying to find solutions to problems that exist between different groups, and perhaps find a way to find peace or unity or a better form of understanding between the groups.

Pardon for my rant, but I guess I just wanted to show the only positive thing that really came out from this. It's what has led me to give my strange posts of evolution and creationism being one and the same, and broad physics questions trying to unify all phenomena in nature.

[SlowwHand]

Rant? We have Pekka and others here. You call that a rant? HA!