Three Stories of Forgiveness; by gurmeet Net

Three Stories of Forgiveness

December 2nd, 2008 

 

In the stories below, parents lost their children. The intensity of pain at losing one’s own child is colossal — it exceeds other bereavements. It is challenging to even imagine what it means to forgive a person who took one’s child away. readmore....

Difference Between Eah and Oh!

 

--by Jerry Winstorm (Sep 06, 2011)

After walking some distance, stopping for a cup of tea, and winding my way back to the apartment, I happened upon an older, homeless man in an alley. He was surrounded by several overstuffed plastic bags, and had apparently spent the night in the alley.

When our eyes met, we held the moment for an unusually long time. I held the gaze longer than usual, hoping he might ask for money — but he did not. His sad, sweet eyes unexpectedly brought tears to my own. I continued walking as I spontaneously said a little prayer for him. As I continued on my way, feeling his sadness, I looked up and was startled to see a well-dressed woman staring at me in a most intense and compassionate way. She smiled enthusiastically when our eyes met, perhaps thinking it was my own sadness I held. I walked on.

Several blocks down the street, as I neared a storefront, I spotted a young man in his late teens just getting up from his pile of dirty blankets. He, too, had spent the night on the street. He looked so young and vulnerable as he tried to pull his shirtsleeves down over his cold hands. As I passed, he looked at me and smiled. I slowed, but he didn't ask for anything either. I came home unable to shake the feeling of sadness for these men and for the imbalance in our world. Yet, all I felt I could do was hold the sadness I was feeling in a reverent, prayerful way. From past experience I know, and have come to trust, this way of holding others. When no other action is called for, this emotional embrace, in itself, can be a gift.

To many, non-action in a situation like this may not make sense. However, sometimes literal "giving" can be a way to avoid the weight of another's burden. The spirit of the moment can ask something different of us, something different from our ideas of what it means to give. Reverently holding the suffering of others can be a moment's greatest offering, and it is a moment many of us often avoid by trying to buy our way out with literal acts of goodness. When one sees the activity of this holding as a formless act of compassion, one goes about it with reverence. Where literal action fails, reverent generosity succeeds by becoming a container able to hold the tears of the world.

The delicate refinement of reverent generosity is one of the loftiest disciplines of embodied life. Reverence is the only appropriate response to the mystery by which we are are surrounded. It requires unrelenting attention. Lao Tsu said, " How great the difference between 'eah' and 'oh!'" The "eah" response to life represents an attitude of indifference, while the "oh!" response represents openness and surprise in the face of an awesome and mysterious universe. One's natural impulse to inspire others with that emotion which reverence has awakened in one's own heart creates sublime beauty in the world. With reverence, the difficulties in life become grist for the mill. Chaos, hopelessness, suffering, even death—everything may be placed on the altar for transformation in the eternal. What comes through may be a sweet word, a gift, a joke, wisdom, or even the use of the sword; inspiration finds a way to undo the illusion of limitation. Inspiration enters the heart through the portal of reverence. With inspiration rippling through the collective, the heart of the world grows unalterably stronger.

--Jerry Winstorm, in Reverant Generosity 



                                                               

WHAT ABOUT FORGIVENESS???

                                                    Sue Norton and Aba Gayle                              
                                                               
                                                                    

                                                                         Sue Norton



Sue Norton lives in Arkansas City, Kansas. She received terrible news during a phone call from her brother in January 1990. Her much beloved, Daddy, Richard Denny and his wife Virginia were found murdered in their home. Sue’s Daddy was shot to death in his isolated Oklahoma farmhouse. The crime netted the killer $17.00 and an old truck.

Sue says she felt "numb". She couldn’t understand why someone would want to hurt people who were old and poor.

The loss of her Daddy just broke her heart.

Sue sat through the trial of Robert Knighton (B.K.). She was confused about how she should feel. She tells me that everyone in the courtroom was consumed with hate. They all expected her to feel the same way. But she couldn’t hate the way they did because she says, "it didn’t feel good."

The last night of the trial she knew there must be another way. She couldn’t eat or sleep that night and prayed to God to help her. When morning came, she had this thought. "Sue, you don’t have to hate B.K., you could forgive him".

The next day, while the jury was out for deliberation, Sue got permission to visit B.K. through the bars of his holding cell. Sue relates, "I was really frightened. This was my first experience in a jail. B.K. was big and tall, he was shackled and had cold steely eyes." At first B.K. refused to look at Sue. She asked him to turn around and he answered, "why would any one want to talk to me after what I have done?" Sue replied, "I don’t know what to say to you. But I want you to know that I don’t hate you. My grandmother always taught me not to use the word hate. She taught me that we are here to love one another. If you are guilty, I forgive you.

B.K. thought Sue was just playing games. He couldn’t understand how she could forgive him for such a terrible crime. Sue says, "I didn’t think of him as killer, I thought of him as a human being.

People thought that Sue had lost her mind. Friends would step to the other side of the road to avoid her. But Sue says, "There is no way to heal and get over the trauma without forgiveness. You must forgive and forget and get on with your life. That is what Jesus would do.

B.K. resides on death row in Oklahoma. Sue often writes to him and visits occasionally. She feels that B.K. should never leave prison, but she does not want him executed. She has become friends with B.K. and because of her love and friendship he has become a devout Christian.

Sue states that some good has come out of her Daddy’s death.

"I have been able to witness to many people about Jesus and forgiveness and helped others to heal. I have brought B.K. and many other men on death row to our Lord Jesus Christ. I live in peace with my Lord!"

Sue Norton is a member of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation and the Kansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Sue has traveled extensively to speak to schools, churches and community groups about forgiveness and Christianity.

Sue gave an eloquent speech to the parole board pleading to save B.K.'s life.  Many of the parole board members were in tears but voted for death.  B.K. was executed by the state of Oklahoma on May 27, 2003.   Bud Welch from Oklahoma City and Aba Gayle from Oregon were both there to support BK and Sue with their loving energy.