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You don’t tend to your family and your gifts. And with this trespasser so present, what does one do? You stand in the cage with your whip and chair at the ready, ever vigilant, waiting to do battle the moment the hate and anger begin to claw at your heart once more.īut here’s the thing: while you’re doing that, the rest of your life goes unlived. He gets to take up residence like a tiger stalking back and forth between your heart and mind. Gay writes, “My unwillingness to forgive this man does not give him any kind of power,” but that’s exactly what it does.ĭylann Roof may be, as she says, “beneath my contempt,” but even to place him as such means he gets to stay within you. But you can’t do all the work you need to do if you are tied up in an unforgiving state. The recognition alerts us to work that must be done and we have to figure out what that work is, what personal gifts must be brought to bear to maintain the light so the darkness does not overcome us.
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On the contrary- forgiveness recognizes the evil and also the vital necessity that we must face evil full on.
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Forgiveness doesn’t mean you don’t recognize the evil. We should recognize them as beyond forgiving.” Gay’s essay: “My lack of forgiveness serves as a reminder that there are some acts that are so terrible that we should recognize them as such. I do want her and everyone else to understand this forgiveness and why it’s important. I know many others are similarly flummoxed. But because she writes, “I cannot fathom how they (the families of the Charleston victims) are capable of such eloquent mercy,” I am impelled to respond. But her adamant stance against forgiveness struck a dissonant note so jarring it drove me to pick up my pen. Her voice is powerful, bright, and clear like a clarion full-blown in tone and meaning. Gay’s work and I was thrilled to meet her briefly in April at the annual conference of The Association of Writers and Writing Programs. However Roxane Gay’s New York Times piece, “ Why I Can’t Forgive Dylann Roof,” has unlocked something in me. I would have to write about Sandy Hook Elementary where my son, then in third grade, hid under a table in his classroom while down the hall his god-brother and many others he cared about were murdered by Adam Lanza. The real reason I turned her down was this: to write about Charleston I would have to write about December 14, 2012. I told her it seemed plenty of people were having their say and I had nothing to add. A few days ago a friend made a kind and generous offer: if I wanted to write about Charleston, about my feelings about the shooting and about community tragedy in general, she would post it and promote it.