Article February 3, 2003 Issue

Forgiving the unforgivable

By Marilyn Jones Senior Writer

ABOUT SIX YEARS AGO, Everett Worthington and two other researchers had just turned in to their publisher the draft of their new book on the subject of forgiveness, called To Forgive Is Human: How to Put Your Past in the Past (InterVarsity Press). Worthington, one of the earliest researchers in the field of forgiveness, had spent the previous ten years studying the impact that forgiveness—and unforgiveness—has on both physical and mental health.

Shortly after submitting his book for publication, Worthington was faced with a tragedy that altered his life, and his family's life, forever. Forgiveness became a real-life imperative. The lessons Worthington learned, and his response in the days immediately following the news of this tragedy, have brought the light of hope to many people who have heard his remarkable story. They have been inspired by the deeply spiritual underpinnings of Worthington's professional and personal approach to forgiveness.

Everett Worthington's mom always called him Sonny when he was growing up, and later, even as a grown man and a professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. When Worthington was on a radio interview by phone hookup with a station in Knoxville, Tennessee, talking about his research on forgiveness, his mother called in at the end of the program. "Sonny," she said in her soft East Tennessee drawl, "I've been listening to you for the last hour, Sonny, and you're a good boy, Sonny." He warmly remembers that day: "I was forty-eight at the time," he says, "but I was still her 'good boy.' "

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