Category: forgiveness

Forgiveness

Our church’s Lenten Bible study this year was about the Apostles’ Creed. It was a yeasty conversation over topics such as the representation of God as Father. One part reads “I believe in the…forgiveness of sins”. By that, one might assume God forgiving sins, but I think it also has as much to do with us forgiving the sins/debts/trespasses (to site another well-known Christian prayer) of each other.

Today being Good Friday, I’m also reminded of Ruby Bridges, a six-year old black girl who desegregated the schools in New Orleans in November 1960, who you will recognize from a famous painting by Norman Rockwell. To survive the attacks she received daily as she walked to school, and where only one of her white teachers would teach her, she said a prayer which her mother had taught her. Robert Coles, then the child psychiatrist who volunteered to work with Ruby and her family, asked her one day what she was mumbling as she walked through that crowd. She famously told him she was saying this prayer, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This of course echoes one of the seven last words of Jesus on the cross.

Thus, it is in that spirit that I have decided that I need to forgive someone. It has to be someone for whom I have had a great deal of enmity in the past, lest it not be meaningful. So, I’ve decided to forgive George W. Bush.

I forgive George W. Bush for:
*gutting environmental initiatives
*instituting a wide variety of surveillance programs
*signing the USA (so-called)PATRIOT Act (H.R. 3162)
*the unjustified invasion of Iraq in 2003
*the poor handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis
*the lack of fiscal regulations that has led to the current recession
*and all the rest of it

Understand, I haven’t forgotten. But I’m doing this for me, not for him. I need to let go of my anger.

Maybe someday I’ll even forgive his vice-president – or maybe not. Certainly, I’m not there yet.

ROG

ROG

QUESTION: Looking forward, looking back

There was major flooding in the city of Rensselaer, just across the river from Albany, a couple weeks ago, and the mayor blamed it on some controversial development taking place a few miles away. I was practically struck dumb (yeah, hard to believe, I know) by the comment of someone I know: “Now the blame game begins.” It didn’t feel like a “blame game” at all. It was historic flooding that closed the train station from Rensselaer to the next stop to the south, Hudson. SOMETHING happened. We should talk about it, don’t you think?

There seems to be a certain mindset – I don’t know of it’s an American process or not – that says, “A bad thing has happened. Let’s not dwell in the past, but let’s move on,” even before one can grieve or understand the loss.

But wait. Your house in California burned. Again. You’re going to build a THIRD time. I saw at least one home owner say that on the news this fire season. But it’s not just YOUR decision. Building in a know fire zone means resources are put in place to contain the next fire. Can we talk about this first?

Likewise, building in a flood zone. I think I mentioned in this blog about a town that after the historic 1993 floods on the Mississippi moved the whole town to higher ground and was spared the devastation that its neighboring towns experienced AGAIN in 2008.

I am fascinated by Greensburg, KS. Devastated by a tornado in 2007, it is rebuilding as a ‘green’ city.

Certainly, there are implications of this thought process dealing with interpersonal relationships, where someone who is wronged is told to “get over it!”, usually too quickly for my taste.

So, my overly broad question: when do you look forward, and when do you reflect on what happened to see if maybe, just maybe, this needs to be rethought?
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Because it’s been hanging out, an orphan

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And just because:

ROG

ROG
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