forgiveness – Engaging Peace

TRUE COLORS, Part 4

Posted on October 23, 2017 by kathiemm

By Doe West

[Note from Kathie: this is post 4 in a four part series by Dr. Doe West, award-winning psychologist and pastor.

In response to the October 2006 mass shooting at the West Nickel Mines School in the Old Order Amish community in Pennsylvania, some commentators criticized the quick and complete forgiveness with which the Amish responded. These critics argued that forgiveness is inappropriate when no remorse has been expressed, and that such an attitude runs the risk of denying the existence of evil.

Others were supportive. Donald Kraybill and two other scholars of Amish life noted that “letting go of grudges” is a deeply rooted value in Amish culture, which remembers forgiving by others done grievous wrong such as Jesus himself. They explained that the Amish willingness to forgo vengeance does not undo the tragedy or pardon the wrong, but rather constitutes a first step toward a future that is more hopeful.

I know the members of the Amish community were as much in the dark about the reasons for the killer’s behavior as I was then and still am today. But they went way beyond prayers for forgiveness. They undertook the behavior of forgiveness.

So, I am speaking to you about how we can change our behavior long before our emotions lead us astray; they will catch up if we push forward with new, better behavior.
Even as they dealt with all human emotions, the Amish community stepped forward in the behavior of forgiveness for all those impacted by the violence. Yes, they still had to bury the dead, live with the injuries, destroy the old school building, and build a new one — and send their children to it.

This I know. Our behavior shows our true colors. Our feelings arise from our humanity. There are no moral obligations to our feelings but there are to our behavior.

I know also that I want a life that not only allows a future that is more hopeful but also one that my behavior helps create.

By my behavior, Toward others and myself. I will show my true colors in ALL seasons of this complex life. I will forgive and I will not fear. I will go forward living my red-letter life with fearlessness of compassion and fearlessness of forgiveness. In a life left open to hope.

TRUE COLORS, Part 3

Posted on October 20, 2017 by kathiemm

by Doe West

Â [Note from Kathie: this is post 3 in a four part series by Dr. Doe West, award-winning psychologist and pastor.

THIS I CAN PROVE:

Trees actually begin to show their true colors in autumn.

Here’s why: The four primary pigments that produce color within a leaf are chlorophyll (green), xanthophylls (yellow), carotenoids (orange), and anthocyanins (reds and purples). During the warmer growing seasons, leaves produce chlorophyll to help plants create energy from light. The green pigment becomes dominant and masks the other pigments. As days get shorter and nights become longer, trees prepare for winter and the next growing season by blocking off flow to and from a leaf’s stem. This process stops green chlorophyll from being replenished and causes the leaf’s green color to fade. The fading green allows a leaf’s true colors to emerge, producing the dazzling array of orange, yellow, red, and purple call fall foliage before the stem finally detaches. Leaves fall, and their true colors are revealed.

We may never know the true colors of the Las Vegas shooter — why he did it, what forces internal or external drove him. We see only the dominant color of his behavior that one dark night. I lovingly offer that we need to shift focus from his behavior to our own behavior in response. One clear view I have about the fraught issue of forgiveness comes from another atrocity, another October massacre. On October 2, 2006, a shooting occurred at the West Nickel Mines School, an Amish one-room schoolhouse in the Old Order Amish community in Pennsylvania. A gunman took the children in that school hostage and then shot eight of the 10 little girls (ages six to 13), killing five of them before taking his own life.

The emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation in the Amish community brought me to my emotional knees. Each time I find myself in this same spot, driven by anguish or anger or awe, I remember this:

On the day of the shooting, the grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls was heard warning some young relatives not to hate the killer, saying, “We must not think evil of this man.” Another Amish father noted, “He had a mother and a wife and a soul, and now he’s standing before a just God.”

Jack Meyer, a member of the Brethren community living near the Amish in Lancaster County, explained, “I don’t think there’s anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts.”

Amish community members visited and comforted the gunman’s widow, his parents, and his parents-in-law. One Amish man held his sobbing father in his arms, to comfort him. About 30 members of the Amish community attended the man’s funeral, and the widow of the killer was one of the few outsiders invited to the funeral of a victim.

The widow wrote an open letter to her Amish neighbors, thanking them for their forgiveness, grace, and mercy. She wrote, “Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you’ve given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you.”

TRUE COLORS, Part 2

Posted on October 18, 2017October 17, 2017 by kathiemm

by Doe West

[note from Kathie: this is post 2 in a four part series by Dr, Doe West, award-winning psychologist and pastor. ]

At times like this [in the wake of the latest mass killing], we, Christians and others, get asked the worst questions–from other people and ourselves: Must we forgive? This? HIM?!

Ephesians 4:31-32 – 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

We read those words and may even taste some bile in our throats that rises with those words hitting deep in our pain.

I have been called a red letter Christian … preaching from and turning to the words of the Christ over the words in the Old Testament. But I do read all the words … and I do preach from the Old Testament … but it always surprises me when the Old Testament helps me with the New Testament.

Isaiah 43:25-26 25 I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. 26 Review the past for me, let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence.

Yes, Father God, let us argue the matter.

And how I would love to hear the case for this mass murderer’s innocence… and mine, as I deal with my anger toward his behavior.

I realize that I cannot hate or be angry with him for I know only what is printed about him and his life and his preparation for that night. Which is nothing I can know much less prove.

What I feel is the anger / rage at is his behavior.

In all my decades of learning and work –as Pastor, as Counselor, as Professor – I find one path for escaping from the constant on-state of pain during such times is by engaging my mind with my emotions… using contemplation and consideration as a rope walk up from that pit of rage.

I learned a phrase when working on a grant at the Harvard School of Public Health when we were doing investigation and debate of findings on some unknown pathogen … pathogens of body or mind or behavior: What do we think? —- what do we know? — what can we prove?

So often we get stuck at what we think but do not know.

Or know but cannot prove.

In my next posts, I will share what I think and what I know and what I can prove, and how these insights may help all of us,

The Golden Rule: Eleven World Religions (and New Commentary)

Posted on October 11, 2017November 20, 2017 by kathiemm

By Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D

“If you seek justice, choose for others what you would choose for yourself.” (Baha’i)

“One should seek for others the happiness one derives for one self.” (Buddhism)

“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” (Christianity)

“What you do not want done to yourself, do not unto others.” (Confucianism)

“Do naught to others which if done to thee would cause pain.” (Hinduism)

“No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Islam)

“We should . . . refrain from inflicting upon others such injury as would appear undesirable to us if inflicted upon ourselves.” (Jainism)

“What is hurtful to yourself, do not do to our fellow man.” (Judaism)

“As thou deemest thyself, so deem others.” (Sikkhism)

“To those who are good to me, I am also good; and to those who are not good to me, I am also good. And thus all get to be good.” (Taoism)

“Do as you would be done by.” (Zoroastrianism)

It is indeed ironic, tragic in fact, that the Golden Rule is considered an essential truth of world religions, and yet is abandoned by religions in favor of self-serving social and political goals keeping people apart, separate, and disconnected. As has been said by wise voices: “There is no other.”

Apparently, the mere presence of alternative beliefs confronts people and religions with an experienced threat to their beliefs, diminishing the value of their beliefs, because there is an alternative.

“How can you say this?” they claim, “when I know fervently in my heart and mind, and, because of everything I have been told, my view is the only right view. ”

“Now I must try to inform you of your errors, even if I must use force and violence. It is for your sake I do this, so you may know the truths I know and believe. My God is more powerful than your god.”

There is no easy answer to this paradoxical behavior, rooted as it is in complex historical, cultural, political, and economic reasons. Perhaps, a first step is for an individual to say:

“Peace begins with me! I will practice non-violence, and offer healing to all in need. I will constantly ask forgiveness for the acts I committed bringing sorrow and grief to others.”

Humility is required! There is healing in apology. Individuals, groups, and nations can forgive, and can apologize, and with these acts can find “Truth” in the Golden Rule, and a new sense of identity and purpose in these acts.

As Vaclav Havel noted: “Perhaps it was always there, and our selfishness prevented us from seeing it and knowing it.”

Special appreciation to an old friend, Stephen Blessman, for his knowledge of the Golden Rule in world religions.

October, 2017