forgiveness.

i watched a really sad/interesting korean movie last weekend called "a moment to remember." for the sake of my own sanity (it was really sad!) i won't summarize the plot, you should all find it and watch it yourselves anyway. i love the way asians do love stories: no sap, no unrealisticlly happy endings, and plenty of heart-wrenching sadness to make it seem real. but i digress.

in the movie, the main girl character was fighting with her new husband out whether or not he needs to forgive his mother. he says he doesn't need to, that she was a horrible woman who did horrible things, and that he would be better off having nothing to do with her, and that he didn't care. his wife, however, has a different take on what forgiveness means. her husband is a carpenter, so she uses a metaphor he can readily understand: building a house. i am trying to remember what the subtitles said, but something like this:

"not forgiving is like building yourself a house. a very beautiful, expensive house that you put all your time and effort and money into. then, you ask the person you can't forgive to move into the house instead of you. you are outside shivering in the cold and rain, beating on the door to be let in, while someone else is living inside the beautiful, warm house that you built. that's what hate is. if you forgive, you can give that person only one small room inside the house and you don't have to deal with them anymore. you can live in the house you built happily, and life can go on."

interesting, right?