I saw an article on the news about how Australian Returned Service men are in outrage at the thought of forgiving the men they fought against in the Vietnam War, and us all just getting along.

I didn’t catch all the details, but it reminded me of the first time I went to Cambodia. Virtually every single Cambodian lost a family member friend during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. And because of the way things worked out, many people today, literally live next door to the guy who killed their child/sister/parent only a couple of decades ago.

I actually couldn’t get my brain around the philosophy of the people I met. I’m a total grudge holder, I find it incredibly hard to forgive people, and when I’ve heard about religions where people are encouraged to forgive, I honestly believed that everyone in those religions just lied their way through the forgiveness process.

But to be confronted with not one, but an entire country of forgivers, changed my life. It definitely changed my theory on human nature, because what they were capable of forgiving, flies in the face of everything I knew of human nature.

I’ve heard forgiveness is the ultimate revenge, and the ultimate gift to yourself, you let go of the pain and anger. And people who are truly capable of it get my utmost respect. I would love to learn how they manage to do it.

But, I also completely understand that it must be a very, very hard thing, to vividly remember scenes of horror, transplant the enemy into today’s life and just get on with it. I respect the Australian Returned Servicemen either way.

It does, however, inspire me to spend some time with the idea and figure out, how on a smaller scale, we can all learn to forgive.