on forgiveness

An odd bit of synchronicity today:

Over at the LC forum I frequent, I've been following, but not participating in, a thread in which one member solicited advice after having a particularly rough day. A friend had disappointed her, as had some in-laws.

I've refrained from participating because I know my views aren't welcome. I'm reading it anyway, because it's interesting to me to see how people deal with this sort of thing. I've had my share of personal disappointments and tragedies, to be sure.

Today, another member, Debby, shared her own philosophy of just letting these things go. She described how distracted and careless we all usually are, and assessed that most slights are unintentional: "it really isn't personal. It's not about you."

I found her advice inspirational and meaningful, because "letting it go" is something I am trying to do in my own life, and I agree that 9 times out of 10, or maybe even 99 times out of 100, things we could interpret hurtfully were not intended that way: it's really not about me. Somewhat predictably, she was met with this response:

Though you offered neither advice nor pity,... I know who you are and the spirit in which your post was intended.

Still, can you see that another interpretation would be that you're somehow better than most people because you have suffered so much adversity and still have such a good, kind, forgiving soul?

Why would anyone put this interpretation on Debby's reply? This is exactly what happened to me in the political threads. I told my own story and described how my views had helped me to shape my life, but I was attacked for being condescending and arrogant simply because I presented a different way of looking at things, and did so through the story of my own experiences. This kind of unwillingess to listen makes it really hard for me to want to participate in online forums much anymore. What's the point?

I thought it was really interesting to stumble across this post on the health benefits of forgivenss during a subsequent web-crawl: InstaPundit brought me to the Grand Rounds weekly roundup of medical blogs, which had this illuminating post on Why Forgiving Can Be Good for You .

Debby has the right idea.