Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

He looked around at us, and I guess we all had our heads tilted to one side like Tartan trying to figure out a new trick as we tried to grasp what he was saying.

“Look, you get hurt, and you haul the one who hurt you into court, and they decree that he should be hurt, too. Does that un-hurt you? No. It just adds some more hurt to the world. The only way to get un-hurt is to forgive, to let it go, to release the one who hurt you from your debt.”

I could see what he was saying, but I still couldn’t see the practical application of it. Maybe it worked for Steve Saint or Corrie ten Boom ... “But who could tell them they had to forgive?” I asked. “If forgiving your enemies is the new standard, who can enforce it?”

Torstein laughed. “No one can enforce it. It comes from inside.” He laid his hand on my chest and said, “It comes from in here. Look, Bruiser was honest. He said his reaction to Franz’s betrayal would have been different before he met me. But now, now he knows something that makes all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune moot. Now he knows the power of love. It’s not the important thing, it’s the only thing. And with that power, forgiveness may not always be easy, but it’s always possible. He raised his hand to the side of my face, held onto me and looked into my eyes. “You have that power in you now, Andy, and you’ll share it. That’s how this power conquers, from person to person, from heart to heart.”

When you looked into his eyes, there was no way to disagree. But there were so many millions in the world who never had.

“You can’t base a justice system on ‘Love your enemies’,” Franz said. “All that would do would be to give creeps like Nikolai the license they need to keep fleecing people and worse. You make that the standard, and your enemies walk all over you.”

“Yes indeed,” Torstein said. “That’s why I say it’s a hard road, and at least as dangerous as the one Sig is walking. But it’s the only one with a snowball’s chance of success.”

“You mean the whole idea is to let your enemies walk all over you?” Pete asked. “I mean, I, personally, I can forgive someone a hundred times, five hundred, but that’s my choice. And even then, if the person keeps coming back for more, I think there has to be a limit, right?”

“Nope,” Torstein said. “No limits. If someone steals your wallet, you ought to give him your television, too. That’s the kind of forgiveness I’m talking about, the kind of charity that makes rivers in the desert. Not that you can congratulate yourself for being so forgiving, but that you can really see the deep brokenness inside the person who’s hurting you, and you try to give him what he needs to be whole. See the difference?”

Pete shook his head. He still thought Torstein was a dreamer.

Maggie said, “How can it happen though, Torstein? People aren’t wired that way.”

“Re-wiring,” he said. “That’s what has been happening here, among us, all along, isn’t it?”