Forgiveness is powerful but complex

It didn't seem to matter what incident they chose to recall. People who had forgiven enormous offenses were much better off than those who hung onto even the slightest grudge.

The film doesn't focus on the ground zero Garden of Forgiveness idea. It explores the subject through seven vignettes, including Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, people in Northern Ireland, the friendship between two men whose families were involved in a murder — one as the victim, the other as the killer — and the Amish community that recently forgave the massacre of children at a school in Pennsylvania.

It studies the notion that forgiveness, more than anything else, is a liberating gift people can give to themselves.

But the ground zero garden has a special resonance because, in one way or another, it affects just about everyone who reads this column. Chances are, you know someone fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq. Chances are, you have an opinion about the war.

So how do you really feel? Would such a garden symbolize weakness? Would it minimize the terrorist attacks of 9/11? For that matter, are people who easily forgive others more vulnerable to abuse? Or do you agree with the wife of a man killed in the twin towers who said, "We must have something that symbolizes that this country is healing and embracing again."

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Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com