Judgement & Forgiveness

Ingrid Betancourt - "The only thing I’ve settled in my mind is that I want to forgive, and forgiveness comes with forgetting. So I have to do two things. I have to forget in order to find peace in my soul, and be able to forgive. But at the same time, once I’ve forgiven and forgotten, I will have to bring back memories. Probably they will be filtered by the time, so they won’t come with all the pain I feel right now." “I think we have that animal inside of us, all of us, that’s the reality of how we are made,” she said. “We can be so horrible to the others.” She said first that it was impossible to judge others, then she said, “For me it was like understanding what I couldn’t understand before, how, for example, the Nazis, how this could happen.” quote from nytimes interview

As We Forgive - Laura Waters Hinson A film contemplating the quality of mercy and forgiveness unbelievably springing out of Rwandan genocide.

Television Interview of a brother whose sister killed his parents:
Q - "Will you ever forgive her?"
A - "I don't think it's possible."
Q - "But she is your sister."
A - "But she killed our parents."

There seems to be a recent discussion on forgiveness. It is interesting to hear the world grapple with this possibility. There is a certain incredulity in the conversation - on the part of the interviewer - which seems so rare for anyone to be surprised by anything in this time of overexposure.

As Ingrid pointed out, forgiveness is bound up with our memory, our judgement of others, and the raw reality of our humanness. As an prize-winning amateur "judge" of others (read the tongue-in-cheek tone), I struggle with the judgements I pass so easily on others. Having had at least one occasion to stretch my muscles in the area of forgiveness for a grievous wrong, and also asking to receive forgiveness for my grievous wrongs, I am very interested in hearing about other's experiences with this anomaly of the human ability to forgive.

Of course, as a believer, I have a distinct premise that it is not possible to forgive without the power of the Spirit - that nothing other than supernatural power can cause us to forgive a tresspass. But I have to consent (more on that later).

I am a strong believer in justice - almost to a fault. I am glad that there is a standard, that there is a right and a wrong. I depend on it being a truth - and am glad of its bedrock reality.

But I am also learning about a gracious judge, one that is tempered and controlled in his judgements. Quoting the bard:

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice.

Very interested to see all the connections in this line of thought to come...stay posted.

Free Verse

Well, I experienced a "first" today. I received information that a poem I wrote in the wee hours of the morning has been published online. (The link is to your right, titled "Awakening"). This is a conversation with God in response to the love poured out on me, undeservedly, and a resulting question rose up in my soul of "what could I possibly have" to give back to Him. After pondering several things, I found that the only thing I could give Him was consent - consent to come into my life and transform it. I look forward to all the ways that I can continue to consent to Him...in his gracious and redeeming ways.

I have been published before in print and prose, in the form of book reviews, but this is so much more intimate and therefore that much more satisfying. This poem was a cry from my lips, searching for a way to respond with gratitude and love to my Creator. Thanks for reading...

Rejuvenation

What is restorative to my spirit? An answer is provided by a recounting of recent weekend happenings that fed me.

These moments minister to my soul. I had the joy of watching my brother "come alive" at a party thrown in his and his fiance's honor, animatedly telling story after story on all his friends present. They were all there - all our close friends from church youth group. The ones that were unable to come - we told even more embarrassing stories on! One couple drove up from Shreveport, LA; others came from nearby.

It was an uncharacteristically cool evening for August in Memphis - the hosting couple staged the festivities on their back patio. Candles were lit all around, the grill master served up wonderful medallion steaks, and the spread was delicious. All things were laying in wait to lead us on a collective trip down Memory's lanes. Oh, all the terrible times that we thought were tragic then - in classic teenage embarrassment trauma - were transformed into hilarious tall tales now. Except we were the participants, so there could be no outrageous lies with all the correctors present. The truth was sufficient - no outsider would believe the events regaled. But we knew them to be God's honest truth. (Some examples: a foreign insect bite to an upper lip which promptly expanded beyond belief, being on the receiving end of a hit and run perpetrated by an irate ambulance driver to my brother and his friends, an injury gained by running through nail-studded rainstorm on the coast of a Central American island, the anonymous water balloon reach achieved by a three-person manned slingshot, the tree to light post stringing up of an unlucky skeleton snatched from a biology lab room - you get the picture).

Unfortunately, we all needed this escapist time to reflect because present day life is not the greatest for all in attendance. A couple of divorces (either self or their parents), children's illnesses, challenges posed by aging parents, students in a present-day schoolroom class needing to be institutionalized (seriously) - and the list goes on.

But this moment was to celebrate the good. The reality of new love, the possibility of trust, the affirmation of resilience under pressure - reminded us of ways to navigate back to the "half-full" viewpoint.

Leading me to Greg and I returning to "real life" - Our own way back was made on a cool evening on the Music Highway from Memphis to Nashville. With my loving husband blessedly by my side, Greg and I were startled by the mid-sentence emergence of a blood red, horizon-level huge moon. Its appearance was so surreal you wondered what this glowing orb was on first sight. Watching a moonrise while averaging a smooth 90 miles an hour is a singular event. We turned on Space Music and sailed home on moon beams.

We stored that particular memory up for future use on hard days of our journey together. I thank God for these sweet, triumphant times!

Hotel Perry

Hospitality - the greatest virtue of the southland. Greg and I have been learning the delicate art - preparing the homeplace to our standard, cooking foods to tempt the weary traveller, and thinking of novel places to show off our chosen home city to best advantage. Sometimes their length of stay is a single night - a way station. Sometimes, we are lucky enough to spend a week with a dear one, unwrapping the different facets of our guest that we thought we knew. We have documentation in a guest book just inside our front door (that began as our wedding guest book) that continued its service to us in recording all those that crossed our home's threshold.

This late summer has proven to be a whirlwind of activity - a record even for us. Beginning with the celebration of Ben Schmidt's wedding here in Nashville, our first guests were Mom & Hal and Jason & Leigh Ann. Next was Robert Foster. Then Marcus Mullins, celebrating the World Convention of churches of Christ. We just said goodbye Tuesday morning to Earline and Susan. Now today we are preparing for Angela and Katie to join us tonight on their first leg of their trek to college.

When I take this deluge of visitors one moment at a time, it is enjoyable and fun. When I look at it en masse, I get overwhelmed and frantic that everything is "in place" and under control. I much prefer the former response, because I like myself better as hostess when I can go with the flow of greeting, conversation, focusing on my guest and their contribution to the table and home atmosphere. Speaking of which, I left out a night of hosting our group from church for dinner and communion. We had a meal of "Build a Sandwich" and watermelon, and then gathered round to all share about the most recent book we were reading. (Greg had several - mine was "Born Fighting", a history of the Scots-Irish.)

This week a dear friend, who is part of our church group, passed away into the next world. She blessed our home when we moved in - we had requested at the time that each of the other couples bring a blessing for our new home. This is the best way I know to transform a house into a home. I believe that her blessings live on in the physical structure of this building, that her words and prayers built on what was here to create what is to come. The Spirit that lives in her has the power to do this. That spirit is consistent with and complimentary to the spirit of hospitality, one that is changing me into one who welcomes, who embraces, who opens her arms to life.