Good morning…
On this week when eleven innocent people were gunned down in a Jewish synagogue, how did God know that our class would read aloud these touching words, revealing our immense capacity to forgive?
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Excerpt from Paula D’Arcy’s Seeking With All My Heart
While living in Boston, I studied the Old Testament with a gifted rabbi at a weekly class held in his large urban temple. He always kept me on the edge of my seat. The Old Testament stories were familiar to me. But not the Jewish interpretations. In order to really hear him, I learned I had to listen from a place of absolute emptiness. I had to listen while assuming nothing, defending nothing, protecting nothing. I had to listen with trust that God speaks in all tongues and appears in many different guises. The experience changed my perspective significantly.
…On the night when the rabbi and I first met, I was giving a public lecture on grief to counselors, therapists, and caretakers… I told the story of my struggle to forgive the drunk driver who struck my family and the lessons I was forced to learn along the way. I spoke about learning that forgiveness is really a choice, not a feeling. It’s a matter of will. I told how important it was when I finally understood that forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning someone’s actions. Many acts can never be condoned. Forgiveness does, however, require a willingness to love deeply, without conditions or judgements. It means loving until you are able to separate a person from that person’s action, leaving judgement of the action to God.
I described the markers that had emerged along my way. First, I made a commitment not to speak of this man unkindly, because words have power. Then I made a commitment not to think of him unkindly, because thoughts also generate power. Ultimately, I learned to pray for him, and finally I learned to let it be. But I never guessed that one day we’d meet. That moment came seven years following the accident.
…On the day when the drunk driver was scheduled to testify, I returned alone from the lunch recess and entered the darkened courtroom. I was about to sit at my lawyer’s table when I became aware that someone else was there. A man arose from a bench at the back of the room and moved toward me. Intuitively I knew he was the driver, and I could tell he had guessed my identity as well. The moment was charged with the full power not only of that recognition, but also of the destiny that had changed both of our lives.
No words were spoken. We stood two feet apart and simply looked at one another… When I first looked at the driver, it was through my own eyes of righteous judgement. Then I suddenly stopped seeing in that way. A veil lifted, and I looked at this man directly, with nothing sparing me from the raw glory of his being. For the first time in my life my sight was unimpeded, my comfortable lens having been stripped away. In that moment I saw the love that is possible in life; I saw how we might live.
…I knew it was the power of Christ (the consciousness of Christ) that drove that moment, responding to my heart’s willingness with the feeling of forgiveness I hadn’t been able to find on my own. After the lecture, the rabbi had come to speak with me, visibly shaken. He told me who he was and how my story had pushed hard against his own beliefs. Through eyes brimming with emotion he said, “Yet I look into your eyes, and I cannot mistake the truth I find there.” (101-105)
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As the veil of our own righteous judgement is gradually lifted, might people find in our eyes the truth of Christ?
Nearing death on the cross as an innocent man, Jesus said, “Father, forgive these people! They don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34a, CEV).
…Sue…
