“Mommy, how do lady bugs protect themselves?”
Today I was on an airplane from Atlanta, Georgia to Madison, Wisconsin. Two rows in back of me were a mother and her precocious and inquisitive four-year-old daughter, who asked, “Mommy, how do lady bugs protect themselves?” I doubt the mother ever heard a question like that. I never have.
It was such a tenderhearted question. Here is the little girl in an airplane and she is concerned about bugs and their protection. Because children are so vulnerable, I wonder if they are particularly sensitive to this issue of protection.
We should all be like children and have this sensitivity. Every person on the planet is fragile in a certain way and therefore needs protection.
Forgiveness is a form of protection. It can protect the dignity of the wrongdoer. It can protect the emotional health of the one harmed. Forgiveness can protect a relationship that is now at-risk. Forgiveness can even protect communities from on-going anger that can pervade neighborhoods, separate people, and leave a blight that depresses economies. After all, communities continually in contention do not receive the tourist dollars and governments often turn away, ever if subtly, from such communities with high rates of violence.
We are one-up on the lady bugs. They do not know of forgiveness. We surely must not forget about forgiveness as we go about our busy lives. We need the protection.
Robert
