John Busby Forgiveness Quotes

What makes one person want to harm another? One reason a person may want to harm another is to get revenge. In the book The Year We Disappeared by Cylin and John Busby, John wants desperately to get revenge on the person who shot him in the face while he was out on a night patrol. John finds himself desiring to inflict harm on John Meyer, the person he assumes shot him, yet he does not know if this is the right thing and considers forgiveness as an option. Since the start of mankind, humans have had to contemplate these three ideas when deciding between forgiveness and revenge: the reasons people forgive, the reasons people commit revenge, and how their choice will impact others. One thought a person must look at to decide what course of action to take is why people choose forgiveness. A person might decide on forgiveness because they want to set themselves free from bitterness. Lindgaard explains, "Not forgiving someone is the equivalent of

People choose forgiveness because they want to release the initial offender from their guilt and past action to form a better relationship with them. As Chernoff discusses, "When we release others from the penalties of their actions, we create a space where our own thoughtless actions against others can be forgiven as well”(1). The quote above explains how forgiving others can allow for a better relationship based off of forgiveness between the initial offender and the avenger. People forgive because they see it as the right thing to do. In the text, "In reality, I was just a man who got somebody mad-- mad enough to want to kill him-- and survived it. Maybe it should end there"(Busby 317). This is the moment in the novel where John realizes that he does not have to retaliate back at Meyer for what he did. This is the moment when John realizes that the right thing to do it to forgive. Forgiveness is an option that is often looked on as weak, but it can actually be a very enlightening