Has justice been served?

So Bin Laden is gone.  America, and perhaps others, celebrates.  He was a symbol of unseen hate, a kind of hidden volcano that could erupt any time, anywhere, causing destruction, loss and grief.  That particular symbol is gone.  Yet, until we find how to make peace work, others will replace him. 

So what is the Christian demand?  As difficult as it may seem, it's individual forgiveness.  Not forgiving the hate or the destruction of innocents, but forgiving my own belief that there is something other than the man that God conceived, created, and loved.

Thanks to Facebook friends for their thoughtful reminders, gathered below.

"Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness, any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives along with the command, the love itself." — Corrie Ten Boom

Each day I pray: 
"God bless my enemies; 
make them Thy friends;
give them to know the joy 
and the peace of love."
- Mary Baker Eddy

“Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, 
and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble.”
- Proverbs

"I have decided to stick with love. 
Hate is too great a burden to bear." 
— Martin Luther King Jr.

"If we have no peace, 
it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other." 
— Mother Teresa

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives,
but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." 
- Anonymous



"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." 
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

And here is another idea for practical prayer shared by Christian Science lecturer, Dave Stevens.

Hurry home

The Prodigal Son, one of the most loved parables told by Jesus, is a classic. Who cannot relate?

In Jesus' story, a kid takes off prematurely with his inheritance, wastes it all, finds himself homeless and without friends. He realizes that his father's servants are better off than he is. Swallowing his pride he decides to go back home and ask his dad for a job as a servant.

The old man has been anxiously watching the road for months, hoping the boy would eventually return. When he does, the father instantly forgives the son's foolishness, and reinstates him as a valued family member.

The father (in the parable the father would be The Father, God, infinite good) doesn't judge, he just loves. That's the nature of true fatherhood.

Here is Jason Michael Carroll's modern version.

New movie: Fambul Tok (Family Talk)

Good news tends to get buried.  It has trouble competing with  head-line grabbers promoting the bizarre and frightening.

Fambul Tok is good news worth sharing.  It's the story of forgiveness and reconciliation quietly bringing Sierra Leone together after the horrors of a wretched civil war.

In Africa, before the colonial powers arrived, the people in a village would get together in the evening to discuss the events of the day, and to solve any problems that had arisen.  It was fambul tok, or family talk.

The first video is a trailer for the movie.  The second explains the concept of fambul tok, and the hopes for healing.

It's a logic of restoration -- helping perpetrators become useful community members again, rather than imprisonment.  See what you think.

Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself. 

~Harriet Nelson

Burnt biscuits

The following arrived in an email.  It's such a good reminder to appreciate the broader good.  Love, forgiveness, and gratitude go a long way towards maintaining good relationships.

 When I was a kid, my Mom liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. And I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at work.

On that evening so long ago, my Mom placed a plate of eggs, sausage and extremely burned  biscuits in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my dad did was reach for his biscuit, smile at my Mom and ask me how my day was at school. I don't remember what I told him that night, but I do remember watching him smear butter and jelly on that biscuit and eat every bite!

  After I got up from the table that evening, I heard Mom apologize to Dad for burning the biscuits. And I'll never forget what he said: "Honey, I love burned biscuits."

Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy good night and I asked him if he really liked his biscuits burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, "Your Momma put in a hard day at work today and she's real tired. And besides - a little burned biscuit never hurt anyone!"

 
So my prayer for you today is that you will learn to take the
 good, the bad, and the ugly parts of your life and lay them at the feet of God.  Because in the end, He's the only One who will be able to give you a relationship where a burnt biscuit isn't a deal-breaker!

When is it OK to disagree?

I recently saw the movie, “Whip It.”

I'm pretty particular about time invested in a movie.  It needs to have a constructive message and, for awhile, this one was iffy.  The teen, Bliss, was lying to her parents, and lying about her age to her new friends in the brutal contact sport of roller derby, and generally making decisions that were leading to unhappy results.

The redemption came when, after bitter words with her parents, Bliss left home.  The women on her racing team were older and tough; yet one of her new friends took her in, offering this kindly advice, “It sounds like you’re being selfish in your relationship with your mom.  If my son lied to me the way you lied to your parents, he wouldn't run away because I'd break his legs.

Turning to her little boy, she smiled warmly, "Just joking!"

Back to Bliss, "Just because you have a new family (with me and my son) doesn’t mean you should leave your old family.” 

Bliss’s indiscretions had also gotten her best friend arrested for underage drinking, followed by her new boyfriend cheating on her.  Bliss returned home sad and wiser.
 
Genuine love in the family allowed space for Bliss and her parents to talk and listen to one another, and move forward.  Everyone struggled to, and did, rise to the occasion. 

What I took away is the important message that unselfish love makes a solid basis for relationships.  It creates space for apology, repentance, and forgiveness.  When all the elements are there, love supports moving past mistakes into stronger relationships. 

A friend once told me, "It's all right to disagree, if we disagree in love."   I think "Whip it" reached that conclusion.

Redeeming the past

A friend was telling me today how her dad had opposed her marriage in the 60s to an Egyptian, fearing she would be miserable.  As it turned out, her fiancé was not the stereotype Muslim her dad had feared, was a kind and considerate man, and they had a good marriage.  But it took her decades to forgive her dad’s stubbornness.

Can those years of hostility be redeemed? 

Cattle in morning mist - rural Missouri

At the Cedars Midwest Bible Seminar, one speaker shared a way that worked for her.  You have a sad story?  Find out where God was in that story.  No matter how unjust or awful the past, infinite good has never been absent.  As you find Her presence right in those terrible circumstances, you are redeeming, even revising, that story. 

The good that is God permeates all the unhappy details, and they fade in importance.  Every glimpse of God’s love at the very moment when it seemed absent, throws light on those dark shadows, until the light is greater than the darkness.  This kind of editing rewrites the story into one that no longer haunts memory.

Love boldly

Sunrise in rural Missouri

This weekend I was part of a life-transforming Bible Study Seminar.  

One speaker, whose topic had to do with the boldness of Christ, invited us to pray a two-minute prayer of repentance.  This invitation spoke to my heart.  A rush of thoughts about my thoughtless words and deeds from years ago, was followed by this sweet release, “It’s all right.  You didn’t know My love then.  It’s OK.”  A gentle peace replaced the bundle of regrets.

All this happened in less than the allotted two minutes.  What that message meant to me was not that the words or deeds were OK, but that I didn’t have to be in anguish, didn’t have to be haunted by those memories anymore.  The reason is because since that time I have found God’s love.  I know She loves me unconditionally, and my choices are much less likely to be selfish or mean and much more likely to help people than to hurt them.
 

The message was to participate boldly in a present filled with Christ -- by letting the sad past go.

Later another speaker gave us ideas for redeeming that past.  But that's another blog, another day.

God's love is bigger

I'm always glad to be reminded that God's love is so much bigger than human love.  Kind of like the sky out west -- it just goes on and on and on.

 I had the great joy this morning of walking and talking along a scenic path with my cousin.  We like discussing things of the Spirit, bouncing ideas off one another.  I was speaking on behalf of caution in not wanting to offend people, while she took the approach for trusting your relationship to God enough to do your highest sense of right boldly.

Part of the conversation touched on a diverse group of women she'd been part of for some months in a prior job.  They were department heads who worked together to keep their departments coordinated.

Kim was searching to understand why the group had communicated so well together.  Then she had it.  "First there was a lot of joy.  That was important.  Then there was forgiveness.  Sometimes we tromped on one anther's toes.  Forgive, forgive, forgive.  That's what made it work."

Conclusion: If God is your boss, trust that relationship.  Make decisions on the basis of that relationship, with a deep  desire to bless.  Keep your joy, and add a generous dose of quick forgiveness of honest mistakes.  As big as a western sky.

A Colorado sky

Through whose eyes?

A recent comment on another blog (Christian Science Fellowship - Metro Chicago) grabbed my attention. The writer referenced the story of Simon the Pharisee.

Briefly, Simon was a sceptic of Jesus, but invited him anyway to come to dinner. In that culture anyone could come and watch the wealthy eat. But one woman came whose profession made her completely unwelcome. Her motive was to honor Jesus' unconditional love for people even like her.

The tension grew. Simon was offended by her presence and could hardly stand that Jesus allowed this lowest-of-the-low to be near him. Jesus understood the woman's motive -- to somehow become the good and pure and useful person God made her to be. He blessed her deep desire and sent her away telling her her sins were forgiven.

The comment writer left me asking this question: Am I seeing the unwelcome guests in my life through the eyes of Simon -- criticizing, condemning, putting down? Or am I seeing unwelcome guests through the eyes of Jesus -- willing to discern honest repentance, to bless and to heal?

Downs and ups of friendship

This little story came in a recent email. It has a worthwhile moral.

Oasis in Giza, 1917

Two friends were crossing a desert. It was hot, they were thirsty, and an argument ensued. One friend slapped the other in the face.

The one who was slapped was deeply hurt. He wrote in the sand, “Today my best friend slapped me in the face.

They kept walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in some mire, and panicked. His friend saved him. After he recovered from the ordeal, he wrote on a stone:

“Today my best friend saved my life.

The man who had both slapped and saved his best friend said, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on a stone. Why?”

The friend replied, “When someone hurts us we should write it in the sand where winds of forgiveness cover and erase the hurt. But when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where wind cannot wipe away the memory of goodness done.

Some studies indicate that people live longer and happier lives when they learn to forgive.

What's important, the substance of friendships, is the good achieved. That's worth writing in your heart.

Law of the Garbage Truck

This metaphor came in a recent email. Thought it had a good message.

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport.

We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car sped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy; and I mean, he was really friendly.

So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? That idiot almost ruined your car and could have sent us to the hospital!' This is when my taxidriver taught me what I now call, "The Law of the Garbage Truck."

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage -- full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it, and sometimes they'll dump it on you.

Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

The taxi driver showed me by example that one key to a stress-free life is to not let garbage trucks determine your happiness.

What happens to you may not be your choice. What you do about it is.

American religious leader Mary Baker Eddy, explained it another way, "Love meeting no response, but still remaining love."

Dependable shock absorbers

Someone shared a great idea recently:

Patience and forgiveness are the springs and shock absorbers that carry us safely over the potholes along the highways and byways of life.

Want to stay connected? Try love!

John Templeton was an philanthropist and a shrewd global investor.

In a tribute to this deeply spiritual man from Presbyterian roots, Gary Moore writes in tomorrow's The Christian Science Monitor, “John worked very intentionally to live the spiritual qualities he prized. And while he may have valued reason, prosperity, tradition, and spirituality, he gave top priority to love, the connecting force that holds us together despite our differences – even the largest ones.”

“Love, the connecting force that holds us together despite our differences.”

Don't you love it!

Families are often like that. Siblings and relatives can be totally unlike in their careers, marriage partners, life-styles, their worship, or non-worship. If they weren’t family, they would have little in common.

Yet when they come together for holidays or other gatherings, they come with love that finds expression in respect, appreciation, and warm affection.

And it's true. This kind of love transcends differences. It isn't critical, it doesn't gossip. It isn't resentful and doesn't hold grudges. It keeps busy doing good.

Love is an amazing universal connecting force that flows through generous hearts.

A finishing touch to our lives

The movie, “An unfinished life” reveals the unavoidability of forgiveness. There’s a sub-theme with a bear in it. The first time I saw this tough but sweet film, I couldn’t figure out how the bear related. The second time it was obvious.

Einer, a Wyoming rancher whose son had been killed a decade before in an auto accident, needs to forgive his daughter-in-law Jean – the driver during the fatal accident. Mitch, his best friend, has been badly mauled by a bear and requires some daily care.

Meanwhile Jean has been living with the terrible guilt of believing she was responsible for her husband's death. Suddenly she shows up, desperate after fleeing an abusive boyfriend.

Although he allows Jean to stay, Einer won’t or can’t forgive. And the bear becomes a metaphor for their lives – how they are all stuck regretting the past, unable to advance. As the story unfolds, Mitch forgives the bear and cajoles Einer into releasing him at night from a small tourist zoo.

The granddaughter Einer didn’t know he had, now nearly ten, becomes the catalyst that softens his heart, enables him to come to terms with life, and to ultimately forgive.

As the bear, set free by Mitch’s generous spirit, walks off into the wilderness, so forgiveness enables Einer and his small family to reverse the downward spirals of their lives and move forward together.

What can be added to this tender lesson?

If we are to live our lives to the full, we must forgive, plain and simple. That doesn’t mean we subject ourselves to further abuse. It means we drop the burden of hate, anger, or resentment from our own shoulders and rediscover the joy of sprinting ahead.

Jesus, who understood a lot about life and human nature had some choice words about forgiveness.

In today's language, he might have said, “If you want God to forgive your dumb and bad mistakes, then you need to be generous about forgiving others their dumb and bad mistakes as well.”

How long? However long we keep doing things we wish we hadn’t. That's a kind of love that adds a dimension of grace to our lives.

If you are interested, the official trailer follows:

Going forward by releasing the past

What am I willing to let go of?

There’s the old story of the monkey who put his hand into a coconut. He found something inside, and wrapped his fingers around it. However, he couldn’t get his hand out again, because in holding onto the treasure, his hand became a fist – too large to remove from the hole. This was the monkey’s dilemma – hang onto the treasure and be stuck in the coconut, or let go of the treasure and be free from the coconut.

Here’s a variation on the coconut theme. Once a an anxious man came running to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to have eternal life. They talked awhile, and Jesus found the man was already doing all the right things. Then came the clincher. “Sell everything you have and give it to the poor. And follow me.” The poor fellow couldn’t do it. He couldn’t let go of everything that seemed important to him, in order to follow Christ.

Progress is a lot like that. So often we have to let go of some perceived treasure before we can go forward. It might be material wealth. It might be attachment to things. Often as not, though, it’s some mental dependence. Sometimes it’s resentment or anger. And you know what? Most of us are reluctant to let go until it really hurts. And sometimes not even then. Sometimes we’d rather die than forgive somebody!

Students, staff, friends and families at Virginia Tech will have plenty of opportunity to figure out how to let go of the past in order to go forward. I wish them well as they sort through emotions, decisions, and determining what’s really important in their lives.

I’ve never been in the position of being shot at, or watching my friends shot or killed, or learning they’ve been killed. So I can only speak from what I know. And that is my conviction in a loving God who comforts and guides those who turn to Him/Her for consolation. From this infinite goodness comes the power to let go of whatever doesn’t bless us. With that letting go, healing and progress can take place.

Good medicine

Highly effective pill

New, extra-strength Forgive All

Here's what the small print on the box says:

"If we confess our sins to God,

He will keep His promise and do what is right:

He will forgive us our sins

and make us clean from all our wrongdoing."

from Today's Enlgish Version

That's not such a bad deal. If we've done something to hurt others, fess up! We can put it face-up on the table if we're genuinely sorry, and give it over to God to be help us be more considerate and thoughtful. Of course, as with any drug, there are side effects.

Warning: Side effects include:

• Freedom from guilt
• reduced tension
• increased joy
• spontaneous laughter
• increased love for your fellow human
• eternal Life
• and an urge to tell others the wonderful news!

This new-old product claims to be:

• long lasting
• easy to swallow

Though introduced by the Great Physician, the Food and Drug Administration has yet to give its final approval.

Something to think about:

“Truth is the tonic for the sick,

and this medicine of Mind
is not necessarily infinitesimal but infinite.”
Mary Baker Eddy