War and Forgiveness in 2020

"An eye for an eye ends up making the whole world blind."
--- Mahatma Gandhi

Part II of the V Part Series:

Mercy, Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Acceptance and Peace in 2020

There's the forgiveness that never forgets.
There’s the forgiveness that never remembers.
And then, there’s the forgiveness practiced for its own sake. Unless we daily and individually practice this forgiveness for itself alone, all that will remain are the ashes of a world in flames and the blood of innocents.

When you arrive at the ripe age of 71.9 years (I count womb time), as will happen to me this Friday, you think a lot about forgiveness. My mother had three children each by a different sire. She never forgave my older brother’s father for abandoning her literally pregnant on the church steps. She kept this hidden ‘unforgivable’ from my brother and me until her death gave us access to her letters and papers. This unforgiving dominated her character and our colored our childhood. Michael and I both left home at the age of 16 to create our own existence outside a family that had no place for forgiveness. Even though Michael committed suicide at the age of 47; nevertheless, we made the right decision.

Last week’s War and Mercy in 2020 was read by over thirteen thousand people all over the globe. Most of the affirmative responses came from Italy and Brazil. Responses from the ‘world powers’ UK, Germany, France, Russia and the United States ranged from polite skepticism to downright derision. Responses from the Middle East, Asia and the Asian Subcontinent were aspirational, and far more humane. Today, we look at the virtue of forgiveness as a necessary condition for 2020 A Year Without War exemplified by Michael Collins in Ireland, Nelson Mandella in South Africa

Forgiveness is intimate because it’s private. Forgiveness is a test of individual moral strength. Forgiveness happens behind the closed door of the soul. No nation can mandate it. No legislation can make it real. Only when dispensed by individuals does is it real. In truth, it isn’t ever earned or deserved. It is its own reward. Without it there is only an endless chain of recrimination, retaliation and the stuff of war. Forgiveness, like mercy, requires strength to admit imperfection in an imperfect universe. Forgiveness is a promise not to remember offenses of the past. Forgiveness is the thread in the fabric of character. It is the second necessary condition for arriving at 2020 a year without war. And it is incomplete if it is conditional.

Michael Collins, Irish Republic patriot, farmer, mathematician, General, assassin, terrorist, politician, and martyr is a good example of the forgiveness that never forgets. You can see it in every photo that survives him. It was woven into his character. His life was a syllabus of betrayal both given and received. He was determined never to forgive the British or Ulster Protestants for their brutal religious repression of the Catholic south on the Emerald Isle. He fought them ferociously as a savage warrior giving no quarter and asking none either. He lived long enough to see his beloved Free Irish Republic born and was himself assassinated during its subsequent civil war at the age of 32 years. Collins resisted the role of peace maker. Accepting it reluctantly he came to a turning point and a dilemma. He could not achieve Irish independence without forgiving those who has trespassed against him. But his was a forgiveness that never forgot those trespasses. As a result ‘the troubles’ as, they became known in Ireland witnessed the slaughter of many innocents because of a forgiveness that could not forget. To this very day vengeance is still sought for those ‘troubles’. Vengeance cannot live in the same soul with forgiveness.

Nelson Mandela exemplifies the forgiveness that never remembers. Communist, South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician, saboteur, philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 he was South Africa's first black chief executive. For his role as saboteur Mandela spent 27 years of his life sentence in jail. A man of lesser character, especially with his high level of education in law, might well have succumbed to a vengeful bitterness that would have exploded in a reign of killing and retribution both for his own treatment as well as the long years of oppressive all-white rule in his nation. He didn’t succumb to his lesser nature. On his release from prison he realized that if he didn’t put aside bitterness and revenge he could never be free and he could never lead his nation to peace through reconciliation with his former white oppressors. So successful was his complete act of the forgiveness that doesn’t remember that he shared the Nobel Peace prize in 1993 with South African President F.W. de Klerk the very man who kept him imprisoned all those years. Mandela’s act of unforgiveness opened his nation to reconciliation and therefore acceptance and peace.

“Forgiveness liberates the soul. It eliminates fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon”
--- Nelson Mandela

Though it may be helpful, religion is not necessary to practice the forgiveness for its own sake. Not all of us, nor even many of us are called on to be a Michael Collins or a Nelson Mandela. Yet, we are the very ones that can so order our life that we can practice forgiveness for itself alone as a human virtue that can bring peace to our world. The world wants 2020 to be a year without war, but it doesn’t know how to get there. There are good Sheppard’s among us, however.

Pope Francis I has proclaimed an ‘Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy’ beginning this August 15 until November 20, 2016. In every country, every diocese, and every parish, education in the practice of mercy will be the focus of every liturgical event in the Catholic Church. In paragraph six of his Misericordiae Vultus (The Face of Mercy) BULL OF INDICTION OF THE EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE OF MERCY, the Pontiff connects the practice of mercy to the practice of forgiveness;

"It is proper to God to exercise mercy, and he manifests his omnipotence particularly in this way”.[5] Saint Thomas Aquinas’ words show that God’s mercy, rather than a sign of weakness, is the mark of his omnipotence. For this reason the liturgy, in one of its most ancient collects, has us pray: “O God, who reveals your power above all in your mercy and forgiveness …”[6] Throughout the history of humanity, God will always be the One who is present, close, provident, holy, and merciful.

Recently the Dalai Lama on a speaking tour to Ireland dedicated to “The Power of Forgiveness” to that nation still challenged to forgive the justified ‘troubles’ on both sides. Part of his special message to millennials seeking the “wisdom of forgiveness” were these exhortations for the renewal of compassionate virtues;

“Dangerous consequences will follow when politicians and rulers forget moral principles. Whether we believe in God or karma, ethics is the foundation of every religion. Such human qualities as morality, compassion, decency, wisdom, and so forth have been the foundations of all civilizations. These qualities must be cultivated and sustained through systematic moral education in a conducive social environment so that a more humane world may emerge. The qualities required to create such a world must be inculcated right from the beginning, from childhood. We cannot wait for the next generation to make this change; the present generation must attempt a renewal of basic human values. If there is any hope, it is in the future generations, but not unless we institute major change on a worldwide scale in our present educational system. We need a revolution in our commitment to and practice of universal humanitarian values”.

So, to reach 2020 a year without war the practice of mercy is necessary for the practice of forgiveness and practicing forgiveness is necessary for reconciliation. That’s our topic next week. Till then…

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