One of Ron's best lines of all time is: "Sometimes in life, you have to be heroic just to avoid being a bad guy." That is, there are times that to be just but not heroic leaves you being petty, small-hearted, or small minded. The irony is that it is just: you are upset at being genuinely wronged; or, you are avoiding that person because they are always so hurtful. But at a certain point, you have to rise above your instincts and be magnanimous, be bigger and better than justice or normalcy dictates. Otherwise, you have inadvertently become the reactive and juvenile person you did not want to be.
For me, forgiving is like that. It takes heroism. It is really hard. it is only possible for me through grace. I cannot do it myself, because my desire to protect myself is too strong. It is a gift to be able to forgive. But in the end, it is a gift to myself as well as the other person. We were made to forgive. And yet we do not come naturally equipped with the instinct or the ability. Such a strange quagmire we humans are in.
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