The Freedom Of Forgiveness

Summer, 2014

Last night I listened as the prosecuting attorney in Ferguson, Missouri, read the report of the grand jury's findings in the shooting of a young black man by a white police officer. This morning I watched video of businesses and cars burning to ashes in a city that was coming undone. Again.

I try to process these images and try to relate somehow to what I am seeing. They remind me of similar images I watched at the tender age of ten when Watts burned in Los Angeles. This inexplicable lawlessness frightened me then and it still frightens me now. How can anyone feel safe when the cover is ripped off of such a dark well of bitterness and hatred, allowing its unrestrained anger to roam free?

Now we witness the violence done to those who had no part in the original tragedy. Will these new victims in turn add their anger, their desire to punish and get revenge, to the monster in the well? When, and how does something like this end? Decades after the Watts riots - sparked by rumors that a police officer had beaten an elderly woman - the area is still in bad shape, as is the city of Detroit, the sight of an even worse 60's era riot. Those who could, fled. Those who couldn't remained in cities without businesses and jobs and access to medical services and hope, for themselves and their children.

And then I remember forgiveness. 

We may secretly think, hope even, that withholding forgiveness provides a way to punish the one who has harmed us. But the truth is, unforgiveness becomes an insidious evil that slithers its way into our mind and wraps around our heart, tightening and squeezing until we, too, take on the darkness and our soul becomes a bitter cesspool of hate.

Martin Luther King once said: Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. And then he proceeded to show us what can happen when people decide to walk in light and love instead of darkness and hate, at the ultimate cost of his own life. He was a man who chose to imitate Jesus, the One who paid the ultimate price for 'poor, ornery people like you and like I'.*

So I contemplate the faces of men and women lit by the fires of this dark night, human beings created in the image of God busy smashing their neighbors' windows with baseball bats. And I think:  this is no answer to the difficulties of life.

Love is the common denominator required for community life. And, as Mother Teresa said, if we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive. 

How does a community such as Ferguson learn to love? Desire to forgive? To build and not destroy? How do any of us learn that the basis for a good and decent life comes not by taking, but by giving? 

     

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is discord, harmony;

Where there is error, truth;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, 

grant that I may no so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to 
eternal life.+

*From the Appalachian carol "I Wonder As I Wander"

+Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi (13th century) but actually traced back only to 1912, in a small French magazine called La Clochette (The Little Bell).

The Big Island

Fourteen hours.  The time between stepping into a cab in front of our house and arriving in paradise on the Big Island of Hawaii is fourteen hours. It is already dark when we touch down and collect our bags and find the 'economy' rental car. It's not fancy, but it'll do. It is a short drive to the hotel and we are looking forward to a good night's sleep.

This is a work trip for National Asset, which means I am mostly left to my own resources. It is a skill I have honed over the years. I admit, I resisted a bit, way back in my young years when I had the notion that true love meant being joined at the hip. But independence grew on me, and I am proud to have gotten the knack of adventurous travel. I have collected enough wonderful memories on our trips to warm my heart on many a cold night.

I have learned to pack comfortable walking shoes and make local street maps my friends. I carry a camera and a cell phone and a hat. I walk miles and miles and get to know a city in a way that just can't be done from a car. I ride trolleys and buses and subways and treat myself to yummy lunches. As long as we never have to return to Warminster, Pennsylvania ever again, I'm game. But that's another story.

National Asset has a day off this weekend before his meetings begin.  "You want to drive to Kilauea?" he asks.
  
"Is that the one where I got weird?" I ask.

"No, no...that was Mauna Kea," he hastily replies. 

I haven't quite got my island legs yet, so to speak, and can't keep the three peaks on Hawaii straight. 

"Are you sure? Because I don't want to find out you are wrong by going weird," I say.

I should define going weird in this particular context. It really is the oddest thing. I first experienced it on a trip through the Rocky Mountains years ago when our children were still young. We stopped at some kind of visitor center in Estes Park where I got, well, weird. I felt like I was going to fall off the mountain. Which would have been quite reasonable, say, if we were climbing up a cliff or something. But this was in a visitor center, for goodness sake. A perfectly level visitor center.

"I feel like I'm going to fall," I tell the Asset as we stand there in the middle of this ordinary looking building.

"Do you have vertigo?" he asks, which is a legitimate question to put to  someone with Meneire's Syndrome.

"No, no dizziness," I say. "I just don't feel safe. I think I'm going to fall off the world."

To his credit, he doesn't look at me like I am completely insane. 

"Can we go now?" I plead.

But the kids are souvenir hunting and the Asset is loving the view from up on the top of the Rockies and I don't look sick and there is no evidence whatsoever that I am actually in danger of falling off the world... so I find a wall in the center of the building and put my back against and just stand there as if my life depends on it.

The second time this happened was on Mauna Kea on a previous work trip for the Asset.  It was a pretty day, clear and promising a gorgeous view of the island. At the visitor center I start getting out of the car, stop, sit firmly back in my seat and close the door.

"Why don't you just go?" I say, trying to sound casual.

"You don't want to come?" the Asset asks in a tone that implies how can you not want to come??

"Remember Estes Park?" I say.

"Ohhh..." he replies.

"You go ahead. I am just going to sit here with my back against this seat."

"You're sure?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Okay, then..." and he goes out to explore.

What can I say. The definition of altitude sickness doesn't include this particular symptom. So we just call it going weird. Apparently it is a unique symptom of high altitude that affects only me.

Now that we are clear on our destination, we head to Kilauea. We've been here before, but enjoy it again. How often do you get to look down into the beating heart of a live volcano? We learn a new word, vog, the volcanic equivalent of smog. I try not to breath too deeply.

As we begin the drive back towards Hilo we are forced to take an alternate road.  Flare ups at the edges of red hot crawling lava set brush and trees aflame.  Later we will find that it is inching its way towards the town with the Burger King where we just ate lunch. I try to imagine what life is like in a place with this particular challenge. I've met folks from Tornado Alley who get antsy about possible earthquakes when they come to visit Disneyland and I have to try hard not to smile. I guess we each just learn to live with the risks we know and fear those we don't.


We follow the coast and catch glimpses of sapphire blue ocean through the dense, jungle-like woods where trees and bushes are smothered with twining vines. It calls to us, and we give in and stop at a place where other cars line the edges of the narrow road. A young man walks towards a narrow path between the brush, leading down the steep cliff to a beach the color of dark chocolate. He looks back at us.

"Did you see the whales?" he asks, his smile wide and friendly.

"Whales, no. Are there whales?"

"Yesterday," he says. "There was a whole pod breaching. There were so many it looked like they were actually affecting the sea, making the waves higher."

He continues down the trail and National Asset follows him. I am content to sit under the trees where I can watch waves booming without mercy against the rough mounds of hardened lava below. The brilliant blue shatters into sparkling white diamonds that fly up and rain back into the sea once more.

The Big Island. A place where things are still wild. 

Kayaking With Bobsie

Last summer I was able to accomplish another 'first'. When you are eight years old, or twenty-seven, or even thirty-two this is not difficult to do. However, when you have lived nearly 6 decades or so, each new 'first' takes on more significance.

So one warm day Bobsie made good on her promise to take me kayaking on Rollins Lake. Properly attired in wettable clothing I climb in the cab of her vintage green pickup and off we go.

Upon arrival Bobsie decides it would be just as well to carry the kayaks down to the lake ourselves as to drive over to the ramp. I say fine and hop out of the truck. We undo the kayaks from the back. Bungee cords? They were held in place with bungee cords?  I have a momentary flashback to an unfortunate event on a family trip when our suitcases were attached to the top of our blue Aerostar with bungee cords as we were cruising down a highway...but I figure she has been using this method for years without incident and get over it.

We haul the kayaks to lake's edge and I stand guard as Bobsie goes to park the truck. When she returns she gives me basic instructions on how to do this. We wade out in the pleasantly cool water, wearing our water shoes. As I am putting on my lifejacket I ask her how to turn the kayak right-side-up, in case I flip it over in the middle of the lake or something.

"Actually, I've never been able to turn it over," she says. "I just tow it to shore."

"Oh, okay," I say.

She looks at me. "You do know how to swim, don't you?

"Well yeah, sure, I can swim. I mean, I'm not going to drown or anything. That's what the life jackets are for, right?"

She looks at me kinda funny like. But I must have passed the test because we get in and begin paddling out in the water.

For the first bit we hang out in the no wake zone so I don't have to deal with bumps quite yet. I find that I like kayaking. I mean, I really, really like it. This is a wonderful thing since I don't consider myself much of a water person. Being prone to motion sickness takes the fun out of pretty much anything that floats on water. And getting vertigo when my inner ears get cold from swimming just kills most underwater events outright.

But here I am, out on Rollins Lake paddling my kayak and feeling good at the same time. It seems like a miracle. I follow Bobsie and try to imitate her strokes. She's not one for giving detailed instructions when learning something new. One fourth of July when we were waiting for fireworks on the porch of a good friend the topic turned to dancing. I confided that neither Ron nor I had actually learned to dance, having grown up in a conservative Dutch culture that considered it verboten.  There in the summer twilight on Jeannie's front porch Bobsie stands up and tries to show me how to dance. There was much laughter, and finally she says it doesn't really matter, you just move your feet around while the man pretty much stands still.

So I learn by watching and am having a wonderful time gliding through the cool blue water on this warm summer day. We head back to the shore and enjoy our picnic lunch. I think this has been a great day when she says we're going back out for some more kayaking.

This time we go beyond the no wake zone, hugging the edge where the tall trees meet the lake at the bottom of a steep slope. 

"Oh! Look!" I cry, pointing at a group of deer bending forward over their slender legs to drink the cool lake water.  I see shallows with downed branches and gain skill in avoiding them. There are more skiers on the lake now and I practice turning the kayak into the wake so I don't end up wallowing in wave after wave. I love this.

My shoulders get tired, but I am loathe to admit it. If Bobsie can do this, surely I can. When we decide to head back to shore, we pull the kayaks up out of the water. 

"They're heavy," I pant.

"They're thirty-five pounds," Bobsie says.

"No, that can't be right," I mutter under my breath. I wonder how many pounds of water I let slop into mine. Bobsie's is almost water free.

"I think next time we'll go ahead and use the ramp," she says as we lug them uphill to the truck. 

I smile at the words next time.

A New Year Is Now Here

Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; 
let me know how fleeting is my life.      (Psalm 39:4)

As I read David's prayer, I am reminded just how quickly a year goes by. I am not at all certain that I actually want to know the number of my days. But as I look back on the years God has already given me, they seem simultaneously long and fleeting. And I both know and accept that they will not continue, on this earth, without end.

One of Ron's aunts went home to her Lord this past year. She loved to travel and sing in the church choir. She remained single, worked with her father in their Christian bookstore, lived with him and her mother, and remained in their house after they had both died. When she became incapacitated by a stroke, her sisters and niece lovingly visited and cared for her in a nursing home until the end of her days. Her numerous nieces and nephews where astounded to find themselves each the recipient of a generous inheritance, after a significant portion of her life savings was given to various charities, as had been her lifelong practice.

We learned things about Aunt Adeline after her death that we did not know when she was still with us. When sorting through her possessions, someone found a copy of this poem in her Bible and shared it on the program for her memorial service. 

I ponder these words, written by one of God's daughters and cherished by another, as I greet this new year.

               A new year is now here

                    Lord Jesus.

               Expectantly I enter it.

               Not knowing what is ahead

                    I lean on You

              If it be happiness

                    let me wear it graciously.

              If it be sorrow

                    let me wear it bravely.

              If it be frustration

                    let me wear it trustingly.

              If it be wealth

                    let me wear it thankfully.

              If it be poverty

                    let me wear it proudly.

              If it be sickness

                    let me bear it cheerfully.

              If it be emptiness

                    let me fill it with You, Lord Jesus.

              I do not ask for happiness,

                     only joy.

              I do not ask for wealth,

                     only richness in You.

              I do not ask for health,

                     only strength from You.

              So whatever You send my way

                     in this New Year

                     can be faced

                     leaning on You.

              ~ Ruth Graham Dienert