A Monkey and a Turkey

So this past week the New York Post ran a cartoon of a dead, bullet-riddled monkey and two cops, one of which says, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

People took offense at this and accused the Post of racism, claiming that they are comparing President Obama to a monkey. They protested in front of the Post building for days until they issued an apology. I'm not defending the Post. I don't even like the Post very much.

Those folks chose to take offense. Offense is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by someone else. We have our agency - a gift and capacity for independent action and choice. There are things to act and things to be acted upon. We are the former.

Then there's the story of Victoria Ruvolo. Her attacker, Ryan Cushing, stole a credit card and went on a shopping spree. After purchasing a 20-pound frozen turkey, he tossed the bird out of his car window straight into Victoria's oncoming windshield. It smashed her face completely. She endured 6 hours of surgery while doctors placed metal plates to reconstruct her face as well as years of therapy. But as Victoria faced her attacker in the court room, this is what happened and what she said:

According to an account in the New York Post, Cushing carefully and tentatively made his way to where Ruvolo sat in the courtroom and tearfully whispered an apology. ‘I’m so sorry for what I did to you.’ Ruvolo then stood, and the victim and her assailant embraced, weeping. She stroked his head and patted his back as he sobbed, and witnesses, including a Times reporter, heard her say, ‘It’s OK. I just want you to make your life the best it can be.’ According to accounts, hardened prosecutors, and even reporters, were choking back tears.

Poetic that both these stories came from the same newspaper? I don't know.

But when you take offense, you're allowing someone else to control your actions. You are choosing to be acted upon. You are, in fact, losing some of your moral agency through that choice. And when we withhold forgiveness, the great God of heaven withholds it from us. We are, in essence, turning away the Savior's atonement, away from the Savior himself, as if we have the "right" to expect justice, when what we really deserve is nothing.