The front-page photo of the bomb explosion in Baghdad on Tuesday is difficult to look at too closely, because what appears to be twisted steel could be human remains. It’s impossible to tell. The car bomb killed 14 people and injured many more. The people were gathered to mourn the victims of a previous bombing. Chairs the mourners sat in blew into pieces, and the Associated Press story accompanying the photo said dismembered corpses lay on the floor. The carnage continues in Iraq. In the middle of this, the interim Iraqi government is now exploring an amnesty program for insurgents. It’s controversial. And the government hasn’t yet decided just how far this amnesty should extend. Should those responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers be pardoned? Or just Iraqi civilians caught up in the madness of the past year? These are decisions the interim government must decide as it settles into its leadership role. Pardoning and forgiveness, however, should not be dismissed too quickly. It can be a powerful avenue to peace. Yet on the surface, it seems nearly impossible to carry out. To understand the complexity, and the power, of forgiveness you need only look to an example close to home. In Tuesday’s Spokesman-Review, reporter Dave Buford told the story of forgiveness between Tara LaCelle-Miller and Shatana Pole. Four years ago in Post Falls, Pole was cleaning a revolver. He’d been drinking. The gun accidentally fired, traveled through an apartment wall and hit Miller, paralyzing her. She now uses a wheelchair. Last summer, Miller contacted Pole. The two met and talked for three hours. They now meet at least once a month on a tentative journey of forgiveness and understanding. Miller admits she still feels some anger toward Pole, and it’s understandable. She takes 28 pills a day for pain. The fairy tale image of forgiveness, depicted in books and movies, rarely plays out as smoothly in real life. But Miller and Pole are to be commended and emulated by others. They have chosen a path away from despair, away from bitterness. And all those who come in contact with them (they hope to give talks together in schools about gun safety and the negative effects of alcohol) will be better for it. In the book “Seventy Times Seven: The Power of Forgiveness,” Johann Christoph Arnold writes: “We all know bitter people. They have an amazing memory for the tiniest detail, and they wallow in self-pity and resentment. They catalog every offense against them and are always ready to show others how much they have been hurt. These people defend their indignation constantly. But it is just these people who need to forgive most of all. Their hearts are sometimes so full of rancor that they no longer have the capacity to love.” Even if an amnesty program were put into place in Iraq, it would not stop all the violence. But so far, all the violence has only begotten more violence. There might be a different way, as two damaged young people in North Idaho have demonstrated to a world growing more violent by the day.