On Playing Among the Bomb Threats: A Call for Forgiveness Education
Today I am in the Middle East, in an open-air restaurant, reflecting on the human condition.
The personal water crafts are dancing on the Mediterranean Sea, which looks today like it is a liquid diamond in the sun. Boys are showing their bravado by jumping off of a 50 foot wall into this liquid jewel, a playground for those with imagination and a willingness to take some risks.
All of those at play seem oblivious to the fact that they are in a playground about 20 miles from another country which has sworn retribution.
Now to a nursery where innocent babies are sleeping peacefully as if they are safe. They are in an upper room in a school, in a daycare center. Beneath them are the older children whose classrooms quite literally are bomb shelters with thick metal casings for the windows and heavy concrete to keep the mayhem at bay.
The contrast between the playfulness and peace existing alongside the threats and the bomb shelters is jarring. How can human beings be willing to blow apart those on the water crafts or to tear the limbs off of the sleeping innocents, all in the name of something that is far less important that those at play and rest?
How have human priorities gotten so twisted that the latest “ism” takes precedence over persons? Can we train the minds and hearts of the young to see that limbs are fragile, that the human soul can be wounded in such a way that those who are wounded now go on missions to destroy….even on days in which the Mediterranean Sea dances with delight and babies sleep though an illusion of peace? We need forgiveness education…..now.
Robert
Poetic and wise. Thank you.
But maybe those without the power do not have the luxury of bomb shelters. Maybe they need those shelters because they exercise power rather than mercy.
Hello, Chris. Actually, the people I described in the essay have 55% below the poverty line. It is interesting that you assumed that I was talking about the powerful. The poor rarely are the powerful.
Sorry for jumping to conclusions about the kind of group you were describing. Yes, the poor are not the ones who exercise the power. They are poor and they need to protect themselves from bombs. Their life must be painfully difficult.
Chris, this idea that there is one oppressor and one oppressed in the Middle East is not as clear as you might think. The fighting has been going on for a very long time and so those in the conflict probably have been the object of injustice and have been the perpetrators of injustice. Both have their own sins.
What a great blog. Descriptive, newsworthy, factual, to the point! Excellent. Yes, that area of the world definitely needs forgiveness education, just as the entire world does. Thank you for your efforts to introduce the life-saving message of forgiveness to so many others around the globe.