Over the past few years, there are a few articles, phrases and ideas that have refused to leave my head.
This is the positive kind of psychological squatting. It’s not the pathologies, anxieties and neuroses that bedevil us all in different ways.
For example, a few years ago I read painter Makoto Fujimura’s Lenten reflection on beauty, and I have not stopped thinking about it since.
Last fall I read Judy Wu Dominick’s essay on the Christian mandate to subvert tribalism through nuance, and it is a banner under which I march.
And about a year ago, I came across these words from Hannah Arendt: “Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.”
I thought of that quote last night while watching “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”
Scene after scene, the film demonstrated the frailty and brokenness of our humanity, with just enough lighthearted humor to keep it from veering into outright despair.
The most poignant metaphor for our brokenness was Dixon’s entrance to his hospital room after being treated for burns. He looks out from his head wrap to see Red Welby, bloodied and bruised by his own hand, sitting on the other bed.
Red is offered a choice: forgive — and break the cycle of violence, hatred and despair — or seek revenge, and escalate it.
As one character says, “Anger begets more anger.”
Only forgiveness can stop this. Forgiveness is a miracle. It is often something we cannot do on our own. Our willpower is not enough, even if our will somehow bends toward the righteous path. We need power outside ourselves to shape our will and to give us the power to follow that path.
