The act of forgiving is unfamiliar to most of those whose knee-jerk reaction to the slightest provocation is precipitate tit-for-tat. It’s a terrible reflex, especially so since it it reflects on our vengeful nature, our manic wish to get back at whoever has offended us physically or otherwise. We have to at least “get even.” This mania underlies the seemingly even-tempered saying: “Revenge is a dish best served cold” meaning, even after the lapse of months or years, it’s still there ready to gloat at the erstwhile unharmed party, eventually coming face to face with their awful Nemesis. To gloat and openly rejoice at tgeir discomfiture — no matter how late peripeteia or chance of fortune. In this light, Scriptures impossible formula of forgiving one’s offending antagonist seventy times seven, if need be spilled its guts in the arenq of impossibility, shows itself to be hyperbole and nothing else besides. But the number perhaps — 490 offences need not be reckoned literally, quantitatively, but “only” according to tge gravity of the offence, or qualitatively. In this case, it becomes not so impossible of “suffering.”
Examples to bolster this rather unlikely at first blush turn events, examples of such circumstances are plentiful enough. Take the case of a formerly tof flight trackster, Lydia de Vega. Having settled to a married life, she had children, amongst whom was a chubby cute young boy (Buboy). Now this kid was like most kids that aged unconcernedly playing on the street (Aguinaldo St., Project 4, Quezon City) when a car drove by and hit the boy in the back causing him to fall to the asphalt. The driver, instead of picking up the boy and rushing him to Quirino Memorial Hospital, hardly a kilometer away, reversed and run over the poor kid (to make sure he was killed). This terrible manoeuvre is a common practice here in the Philippines. It was the better part of prudence on the motorist’s side to make sure of a kill as this wouldn’t cost him as much if the victim survived in which case he’d have to shell out considerably more cash to compensate for the survivor’s blighted future as a crippled, unable-to-finish-school-and-get-a-job citizen. The driver then would be up to his neck in financial obligation to that boy’s family. To cut the story short: the usual compensation for the victim of a fatal vehicular accident would be in the range of P12,000 to P15,000. Period. You can imagine the wrath and sorrow of that boy’s parents, especially Lydia’s.
But with the passage of less than 10 years she came out in print, on TV and other media outlets to say that she forgave, heartily forgave that driver. To my way of thinking that’s a forgiving act well beyond the 70 x 7 forgiving acts demanded by Scriptures for the “usual” day-to-day aggravations. In this case, I cannot help but see the Scriptural reccomendation as a tongue-in-cheek, all but a flippant formula that could equitably be taken with a grain of salt.
