Mandiba

One of my favorite books of all time is Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. It would be difficult to be uninspired by Mandela's life. His life is one marked with great pain and injustice. Yet, the more important marker of his life is his amazing ability to forgive and make peace. Truly his life following imprisonment shows the power of forgiveness.

I recently watched a documentary about the work of Simon Wiesenthal following his liberation from Mauthausen. Many know him as "The Nazi Hunter" or "The Deputy of the Dead." Before knowing very much about him, I assumed his relentless search for over 1100 Nazi criminals was out of revenge. After the atrocities he had seen and experienced, could anyone blame him? It came as quite a surprise to realize that his actions were not driven by revenge at all. Wiesenthal's actions were certainly driven by justice for those who had been murdered, but also out of a sense of responsibility to the generations to come. I was shocked that most of his words revolved around the idea forgiveness.

Certainly the wrongs or perceived wrongs against me are trivial compared to these men. Yet I hope the lessons are not lost on me. The power to forgive is a choice. It would be ridiculous to assume that these men forgave out of instinct. Rather, I believe based on their writings and words, forgiveness was a conscious choice. As a Christian, I have experienced the ultimate forgiveness. Jesus Christ died a wretched death to grant complete forgiveness to me. Who am I to withhold forgiveness when so much forgiveness has been lavished upon me?

Forgiveness seems to be a lost art in our rather litigious society. We are a society overcome with our rights and our pride. Rather than rush to forgiveness, we rush to blame. When Mandela became the president of South Africa, I can imagine that many of the white citizens were quite nervous. How would this man treat the very group who had treated him with such unkindness, cruelty and injustice? To the surprise of most, Mandela chose to forgive and worked to unite his country. The humility expressed through his forgiveness led to his greatness. In stark contrast, it seems that we are quick to rush to judgement and rarely grant the benefit of the doubt. We see the worst possible meaning to the most benign remarks. We look for ways to twist words or actions to be personal affronts. It's all very 'me' based.

One of the beautiful things about forgiveness is that it is not contingent upon receipt. One can grant forgiveness without knowing or even needing the recipient to truly accept it. Sure, it's nicer when they do accept and receive in humility, but the grantor of forgiveness can experience the healing and blessing forgiveness brings regardless of how or if it is received. I think of Wiesenthal's forgiveness of the Nazis who brought such anguish to him. Most likely, they did not receive his forgiveness because they didn't see a need for it. Yet Wiesenthal's conscious choice to forgive played a huge role in his healing as well as his treatment of other people.

Weisenthal also teaches us another lesson. Forgiveness does not always equate to absolution. So now you know the next blog topic...