OK, put this in the category of ‘No kidding!’ According to a 2004 study by Julie Exline (et al) published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol 87, 2004), narcissism is a “robust distinct predictor of unforgiveness”. It would seem that the narcissisist’s innate expectation of special treatment and preoccupation of defending their own rights, make them terrible candidates to forgive and forget.

The authors summarize their findings as follows: “Entitled narcissists are readily offended, and they are eager to save face and to defend their rights. As such they tend to see forgiveness as a costly and morally unappealing option.”

Forgiveness by its very nature requires an ‘other focus’—not just seeing the ‘other’ as a nuisance, threat, enemy or a bother, but as a person made in the image of God– who is entitled to honor and glory—someone who has intrinsic worth that should be noted. Narcissists for a number of reasons can only see their own value, or at least can only see the need to protect their value as perceived in their own eyes or in others. Until that focus shifts, there truly is no hope for any forgiveness or reconciliation. Ironically, the un-transformed narcissist is doomed to a life of ultimate dishonor.

Or are the researchers looking at it wrong? Does the debt of the crimes against us actually — unchecked– transform us into narcissisists? When someone has done something to me or taken something from me, my immediate reaction is to focus all of my energies into restoring things to a balance in my life somehow. I can get obsessed by that venture. Isn’t that what a narcissisist looks like? So did the research really confirm that unless we access forgiveness quickly, we will become narcissistic to some degree. To that degree, we will resist the forgiveness process– which will make us more narcissists– and the cycle continues in a downward spiral? What do you think? What finally breaks that cycle?

‘He will get justice….but he will never get what he deserves!’

So said the grieving father of 9 year old Jessica Lunsford upon hearing the guilty verdict from the jury. Our ‘justice’ is clumsy, very clumsy. The right thing that should happen in a perfect universe is that someone wave a magic wand and restore things the way to the they were before the crime. And even then, there would rightly be some reparation involved for losses, for the mental and emotional beating caused by such a human betrayal.

But our human institutions don’t have a magic wand. We cannot restore tranquility, peace, life as it was. So compromises of perfect justice must be made. In our criminal system, we spend tragically minimal efforts on restoration of victims and victim’s families and focus almost exclusively on divining and executing punishment on the criminal. You do the crime, you pay the time. And so, rightly John Couey will no doubt be in jail for the rest of his life (one way or another). But, the victim’s family will have to accept this as a substitute for what they really desire—the restoration of their daughter and their lives to the way they were before the perpetrator violated their lives.

But their hearts are not so accommodating. Their hearts will maintain the debt, record the loss far into the future. The good news for the victims is that there is a higher court that is not limited to executing the bad guys. This higher court majors in ‘consolation’—which necessarily includes the restoration of victim’s hearts to wholeness – a dynamic equivalence perhaps, but losses restored short term and eventually eternally. In this court, life doesn’t end at death. The Judge presides over only living souls—on both sides of physical death. He has at his disposal amazing powers and gifts. He can restore losses far beyond anything that we can imagine. Jessica’s family, hear this good news. In His court, Couey will indeed get exactly what he deserves—far beyond anything that is dealt out by a human judge. But also hear, in His court, Jessica will also get what she deserves, what was taken from her restored. Isn’t that really good news?