It's About... forgiveness?

Are we supposed to forgive Osama Bin Laden? The obvious answer to this question is for all of us to forgive him. After all, isn’t the center of Jesus' teaching, to forgive? Forgiveness is one of the most important concepts in Christian teachings. However, Bin Laden changed a country forever. He uprooted peoples lives, destroyed families, and killed huge numbers of people. He left a huge hole in American history, that has to go in textbooks and we have to remember every year. The devastation this small group of men can leave behind is incredible. So forgiving is what we are supposed to do but it is not quite that easy. Forgiveness, to me, is recognizing what happened, letting go (of grudges), and moving forward. However, moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting. Personally, I find it very easy to forgive. My thought process is that it happened, its time to move on, people make mistakes, the world keeps on going. But with an event like 9/11 it is not that easy. Even as eleven years went by that day is still heavy in American’s hearts across the country. Though I wasn’t “personally” affected by 9/11 it still has affected me. It affected everyone across the U.S.. That’s how widespread 9/11 was (and still is today). Yet, we have to forgive such devastation. We need to move on as a country, move forward with forgiveness. After all, ever since we were little kids we were taught that God would forgive our sins, if we repented, we have to work on forgiving others like God forgives us. There are many instances in the bible were forgiveness is seen. In Matthew’s gospel, he talks about loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you. We have to forgive all of those who have wronged us. Matthew also shows Jesus as an example of forgiveness at the last supper when the disciples drag his blood so their sins would be forgiven. We still today see the act of forgiveness at Sunday mass. The huge example of forgiveness is when Jesus was being crucified he said to the lord, “forgive them father for the know not what they are doing.” That was the ultimate act of forgiveness, as they were killing him, Jesus was forgiving the people. If Jesus can forgive us our sins, we should forgive other’s sins.