Forgiving the Unforgiveable

My inbox contained this request for submissions:

TRUTH & RECONCILIATION PROCESS
FORGIVENESS WORKS BETTER THAN PRAYER:-)
REDEEMS BOTH VICTIM AND OPPRESSOR
ITS WAKE-UP TIME

FYI - From Johanna Montgomery:
I am producing a documentary for a major Canadian broadcaster about
extraordinary acts of forgiveness. I am looking for individuals who have faced great loss or harm and who have chosen to forgive the wrong (not condone it). Often people make this choice because their own anger and negativity is causing harm to THEMSELVES as well as to those they love [or hate]. Cases where individuals have come face to face with the person who caused the wrong or who are ready to do that, are of particular interest.

People who participate in this documentary do so as a volunteer. There is no financial remuneration.

All stories will be treated confidentially and with respect. Please respond to:   jlmthunder@gmail.com

Desmond Tutu on Forgiveness and Justice
Interviewed by BeliefNet after 9/11

"Forgiveness is not to condone or minimize the awfulness of an atrocity or wrong.  It is to recognize its ghastliness but to choose to acknowledge the essential humanity of the perpetrator and to give that perpetrator the possibility of making a new beginning.  It is an act of much hope and not despair.  It is to hope in the essential goodness of people and to have faith in their potential to change.  It is to bet on that possibility.
Forgiveness is not opposed to justice, especially if it is not punitive justice but restorative justice, justice that does not seek primarily to punish the perpetrator, to hit out, but looks to heal a breach, to restore a social equilibrium that the atrocity or misdeed has disturbed."

Johanna Lunn Montgomery
Wild  East Productions
5174 Bishop Street
Halifax, Nova Scotia
B3J 1C9  Canada
Tel: 902.221.2634

It's an interesting inquiry... When did you forgive the unforgiveable? Is anything really unforgiveable? Is forgiveness always in our own best interests?

Get in touch with Johanna if you're so inclined. I might come back and blog a bit on forgiveness tomorrow. As for now, I'm going to bed.