I was deeply troubled when I read the Daily Interlake's 2/2/07 front page story describing the "bitter testimony" against Genevieve Baker, a woman sentenced to 40 years with 20 suspended for two counts of vehicular homicide. It was a dark day in the Flathead County Courthouse when family members of one of the deceased were allowed to thrash Genevieve with vindictive statements such as she "doesn't have the right to live, she's the one that should die"? stating that they will never forgive her and praying that she "will burn in hell."

      The trial took place more than nine months after that tragic day that Genevieve drank alcohol and drove, accidentally killing two people. She clearly did not set out that day to hurt anyone. One of the victims was her own sister. Genevieve carries deep wounds from life-long emotional trauma and is an alcoholic. As the Flathead Valley Chemical Dependency Clinic psychologist testified, she drank "simply to function throughout the day." Genevieve has dramatically demonstrated remorse in statements such as wishing she could trade places with the deceased and in contemplating suicide because of her difficulty living with the grave consequences of her actions that day. This, and the unintentional nature of the harm she caused, are in stark contrast to those that brought nine months of forethought to orchestrate their courtroom scene of remorseless malice.

      The Bible is clear regarding our need to forgive and to love even our enemies. After Jesus was savagely beaten and lay on the cross near death, He asked, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). We are required to desire this same level of forgiveness. Jesus said, "For if you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions" (Matthew 6:14-15). "Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions" (Mark 11:25).

      1 Corinthians 13:1-3 gives God's perspective of the proper ranking of love: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing."

      Having had a husband killed by a reckless semi-truck driver when my youngest child was three days old, I am not lacking in empathy for those tormented by the anguish of losing a loved one. Nor am I immune from feeling anger about how unfair life can be. Being a physician exposes me daily to first hand accounts of life's cruelties. Fortunately, my profession has also greatly blessed me with opportunities to hear countless cases of courageous perseverance in life's trials and heroic forgiveness for hideous intentional crimes such as beatings, sexual molestations, and murders. Furthermore, I have witnessed what unforgiveness does to destroy the unforgiving individual-destruction that is physical, emotional, and spiritual. I pray we are all blessed with an outpouring of supernatural capacity for forgiveness and that deep level of love and benevolence that both transcends and transforms our human frailty.

Annie Bukacek MD