Unit 11 Open the Door to Forgiveness课文翻译综合教程二.doc

Unit 11 Open the Door to Forgiveness Lewis B. Smedes It’s surgery of the soul, the loving, healing way to create new beginnings out of past pain. Someone hurt you, maybe yesterday, maybe long ago, and you cannot forget it. You did not deserve the hurt and it has lodged itself in your memory, where it keeps on hurting. You are not alone. We all muddle our way through a world where even well-meaning people hurt one another. A friend betrays us; a parent abuses us; a spouse leaves us. Philosopher Hannah Arendt believes that the only power that can stop the stream of painful memories is the “faculty of forgiving”. In that spirit, one December day in 1983, Pope John Paul II walked into a cell of Rebibbia prison outside Rome to meet Mehmet Ali Agca. The Pope took the hand of the man who had tried to kill him, and forgave him. For most of us, however, it is not easy to forgive. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do. But in forgiving we can move from hurting and hating to healing and reconciliation. Hate is our natural response to deep and unfair hurts. A woman wishes her former husband would be miserable with his new wife. A man whose friend has betrayed him hopes the friend will be fired from his job. Hate is a malignancy that festers and grows, stifling joy and threatening our health. It hurts the hater more than the hated. It must be cut out — for our own sake. How can this be done? How can you let go of a hurt, the way a child opens his hands and frees a trapped butterfly? Here are guidelines to help you begin to forgive: Confront your malice. None of us wants to admit that we hate someone, so we hide it from ourselves. But the fury denied rages beneath the surface and infects all our relationships. Admitting our hate compels us to make a decision about the surgery of the soul we call forgiving. We must acknowledge what has happened, face up to the other person and say: “You did me wrong.” Liz was