Forgiveness

The Pope was shot, in 1981 on this day.

There have always been people who have wanted to make a name for themselves by killing well-known or beloved figures. But what happens when the well-known or beloved figure forgives you? When Pope John Paul II visited Mehmet Ali Agca and forgave him, all the air deflated from the act, and the forgiveness became the story, and not the brutal act itself.

Likewise, the name of Gandhi's assassin is lost to history. Gandhi's own message of non-violence and fraternal relations between Hindus and Muslims has become his legacy.

We give people power over us when we allow them to anger us. The next time some terrorist act kills someone in an awful way, don't let them take that power over you. You do not have to excuse their acts, or explain them away - but if you forgive them, and relinquish your anger at them, you can focus on what is important: the lives lived, not the lives lost.

Nick Berg was an adventurous humanitarian who helped an African village learn to make bricks once. We can honour his memory by remembering him for who he really was - comedian, weightlifter, religious Jew, young man trying to make a place for himself in the world - because those are the things he chose for himself. The violent acts of terrorists are like many things that befall us - incomprehensible, an evil we are in some ways powerless to remove from the world.

Better to let a man define himself on his terms in life, than let others define it for him in death. Forgiveness does not mean making excuses for brutality. It means changing the meaning of the words "Nick Berg" for yourself. Those words should mean a life lived well, not a death suffered brutally.