Like Parisian Antoine Leiris, whose 35-year-old wife Helene was brutally murdered in last week’s terrorist attack in Paris. Just three days after her death, an excerpt translated from Leiris’ lengthy French Facebook status to her assailants read, “I will not grant you the gift of my hatred.”
But why should we forgive? Late Holocaust survivor, Liesl Sondheimer had every reason to believe that the world was an ugly place filled with horrific evil. She was forced to flee her native Germany during the Nazi regime. Instead of becoming bitter, the former Lima, Ohio, resident embraced forgiveness.
Not cheap forgiveness that pardons atrocity by denying its existence, or negating its consequences, but genuine forgiveness which is a gift to yourself. Once, during an interview, I asked her how she could forgive. The silver-haired survivor said stoically, “You must forgive, or Hitler has won.”
Twentieth-century civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. echoed this opinion in his famous words, “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that … I decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Still, some acts are so despicable that there seems no way to “stick with love.” For example, the Sandy Hook school shooting on Dec. 14, 2012, was particularly reprehensible in that 20 innocent children and six staff members were slaughtered by 20-year-old gunman, Adam Lanza. Many of the 6- and 7-year-old victims didn’t even have their permanent teeth.
Or how about this past June’s hate crime carried out by a white supremacist during a Bible Study in Charleston, South Carolina, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church? A few days after the shooting, which left nine adults dead, including state senator and church pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, relatives addressed lone gunman, 21-year-old Dylann Roof in court.
According to a June 19 article in the Washington Post by Mark Berman, “One by one, those who chose to speak at a bond hearing did not turn to anger. Instead, while he (Roof) remained impassive, they offered him forgiveness and said they were praying for his soul, even as they described the pain of their losses.”
There were no riots in Charleston, because those wronged refused to allow their personal heartbreak to become a catalyst for more division. Instead they clung to their Biblical belief which says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” There’s even a “Hate won’t win,” campaign inspired by the families of those murdered at the historic Charleston church.
Similarly, last year in Sandy Hook, some people in the tight-knit community performed an act of kindness in honor of each of the 26 lives lost beginning on Nov. 19 through the second anniversary on Dec. 14, endeavoring to make good come from terrible tragedy.
It is this concept of good overcoming evil that some of us are desperately clinging to following the unfathomable cruelty in France. Still forgiveness is not the business of outsiders, only of those victimized. For now, as Americans we can continue to support our French brothers and sisters by praying for Paris until the famous city of lights is restored.
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