Mennonite Church Peace Resources for Youth

This is an section from a paper I wrote for Bible Class. "Revenge is a vicious cycle that never leads to fulfillment or satisfaction. Killing or hurting others will never fill the gap left in one's life. The only way to keep hatred from destroying one's life is to forgive and move on. Forgiveness is the only way to preserve the memory of what one has lost. Forgiveness is really the only option in the case of September 11 and its aftermath, because eventually, America will run out of people to kill. Americans have the mistaken belief that forgiving means forgetting what happened and the lives that were taken, that it is disrespectful to to the victims and their families. However, sending out service men and women to foreign countries to up the body count probably isn't showing respect for the sacredness of the lives of the victims and is only adding to the grief of the nation. The idea of justice being served is not being ridiculed, rather, it is being suggested that killing uninvolved innocents is not a very effective form of justice. The war being fought right now is not a war of justice, but a war of revenge, and where has that gotten the world?"