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He worked with the Dalal Lama
in Northern Ireland towards
conflict resolution and he has
been more than once with the
Palestinians and Israelis
endeavoring to help them resolve
their fears and hatreds. Norman
Fischer is a Zen Buddhist priest
and teacher. He was abbot of the
San Francisco Zen Center from
1995 to 2000 and founded the
Everyday Zen Foundation. In Unity
Magazine for May-June 2002 he
writes on "Forgiveness and
Reconciliation."
Will you think with me about
something that he writes?
"So forgiveness is
for yourself. In a way, it
doesn't really affect the
other person. If you forgive
someone, it doesn't get them
off the hook for what they
have done. They are still
responsible for their actions.
No one can ever escape the
consequences of action;
everyone has themselves to
answer for and live with."
At first reading, thinking
that he meant we can't forgive
(that is, heal and transform)
others, I wrote in my journal,
"But Jesus asked God to forgive
others, 'for they know not what
they do.' I believe this is a
prayer each of us may use."
And here is what I then wrote:
"And right now I'm thinking,
since the One God created each of
us, each of us has the divine
right and power and authority to
forgive others from the position
of offspring of God, saying, I
forgive you, I free you from your
act and from your guilt, just as
I free myself from my former
reactions. I love you, the
highest gift I can give you. I
love you for defending everything
and everyone that is dear and
sacred and valuable to you. As I
love you, I allow your love to
flow through your hurt or hatred
or fear and to penetrate mine, to
penetrate into hitherto closed
places in my heart and mind,
places that are not mine alone
but belong to the species. So my
prayer is that we may allow love
and forgiveness to cause all of
us who call ourselves members of
the human species to rise into a
true sense of family, of
brotherhood and sisterhood, to
rise into the holiness of
accepting now our joint
stewardship for the planet that
is our beautiful home and for the
unlimited spiritual possibilities
that the One God of us all offers
to us again and again no matter
what we still need to learn, and
as long as we need to learn,
until we have all learned and
love as one!"
Then I began to realize what a
complex problem this matter of
forgiving others is (to say
nothing about the rigors of
attempting to forgive
ones-self!). It may require the
spiritual power of a Christed
person to free others of hatred,
fear, and guilt. We Unity
students have always had the idea
that this is why Jesus trained
disciples and was teaching others
to claim the same God-endowed
powers that He was expressing. So
we have invoked the Jesus Christ
consciousness in our
healing/forgiving work, believing
that God can still work the
miracles. Certainly there are
many wonderful stories of
healing/forgiving results in our
ministries.
On the day that I write this,
Victoria's Times Colonist
newspaper has the story of the
transformation of Johnny Lee
Clary who was the Imperial Wizard
of the Ku Klux Klan. This took
place as a result of the love and
forgiveness expressed towards him
by the Rev. Wade Watts, a black
minister of the very church Clary
had set fire to. Sitting in a
radio station waiting for Watts
to come and debate with him on
the air and expecting Watts to
show hatred towards him and all
whites as he had been brainwashed
to believe, Watts arrived, shook
his hand and said "I love
you."
The beginning of the healing
took place then and there, but it
took ten years for Clary to
resign from the Klan. However, in
just two more years he answered
the call to preach the Word of
God. Soon afterwards he and Watts
began a friendship and a ministry
that took them around the world
preaching against racial bigotry
and protesting at Klan
meetings.
So there may be some time
involved in these transformations
of forgiveness, and indeed the
person who was forgiven may have
a tremendous internal work to
effect for the healing to be
complete. Fischer is not wrong in
pointing this out.
Jesus' Parable of the Sower
actually makes this point too: it
is up to the receptivity of the
forgivee as to whether he/she is
ready and willing!
This does not dilute what I
wrote after my first reading of
Fischer's article, does it? No,
my major point is that we need
more Christ (One God)
consciousness actively expressed
without timidity and with the
full understanding that "with God
all things are possible" for
Jesus Christ results to be
replicated. What are you
thinking?
Don
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