Peace Treatments

.....and our hope is in Him. Thank you Father, for Your Son, and thank you, Jesus, for the Cross.

....is a high calling. Very high indeed. For me, forgiveness snuck up and I did not recognize it until after the moment. It began with a willingness, an attitude. I wanted to forgive. If you asked me, "Was your willingness to forgive borne out of your need to let go and stop hauling pain around?" I do not have an answer. I simply wanted to forgive and I'm not sure it was for self therapeutic reasons. I simply wanted to forgive. I can recall having unbidden thoughts, memories, etc pop into my mind, and at one time, I dwelled there with them. Played the dialogues over and over only this time, I came out the victor, saying all the things I wanted to say, but couldn't say. But as I began to want to forgive, the unbidden thoughts, memories, well they still came, but I was less inclined to dwell there with them, until eventually, the thoughts came, the memories came, but I was able to see the futility in the replayed dialogue and simply, yes simply, stopped. I talked to God...

My results from the peacemaker mediation training arrived today. I have been recommended into the certification program. I want to do mediation and conciliation in families and churchs. And. I want to do restorative justice work. And. Travel to places like Rwanda and South Africa to learn other alternatives to punitive justice. And. Study trauma theory some more and work with women who have been sexually abused. And. Finish my BA and then go on to pursue a masters, possibly a doctorate, in conflict transformation and restorative justice, and or trauma counselling and or both. And. Teach and train and write a book. And. Learn how to interpret dreams better. And. On those bad days when I hear the voices in my head telling me "who do you think you are" and "what makes you think you have anything to offer", I just want to stay adjusting, makes lots of money, spend it as catharsis for what ails me, or just stay home and do nothing but read all day. But that's only o...

As I pondered the thought I woke up to on Monday morning (see last post), and talked it through with Jim on Tuesday afternoon, I came to the following understanding. We often have people in our lives who hurt us...over and over and over again. They hurt us with their actions and deeds but mostly with their words. Whoever said "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me" was lying! And as I have been saying in previous posts about hardening hearts, we are faced with a choice when this happens. When I am hurt over and over and over again, I can respond in the way that Jesus teaches, or I can react in the way of the world. The world says I am fully justified in cutting the one who hurts me out of my life while Jesus calls me to forgive...over and over and over again. First, let me be clear. My choice to forgive must be borne out of a desire to restore, both them and myself; not out of a fear to submit or fake peace. The kind of forgiving that I am talking ...

This morning I woke up and instantly had this thought. "Holding bitterness or resentment or hate in your heart for someone is like having a tree that provides you with magnificent fruit but because it also provides your enemy with shade, you cut it down". When you think about it, who are you hurting?

The instructor stood on the stage, glass in hand. Holding the partially filled glass out in front of him, he looked expectedly at the audience. It's going to be one of those "glass half full/glass half empty" lessons, I thought. The instructor hit the glass. Water sloshed out. Ok, that was random, I thought. "How come the water came out of the glass?", the instructor asked. "Cause you hit it". "Outside forces impacted it". "It got hit". piped up various voices from the audience. The instructor repeated the action. Surprise, surprise, water sloshed out of the glass. Hope the church doesn't mind the wet carpet, I thought. "So, why did the water come out of the glass?", the instructor asked again. More voices chimed in.... a man's voice - "external forces making contact with the containment were sufficient to cause expulsion". Okay, I bet he's an engineer, I thought. A woman's voice, "someone a...

Continuing on with my thoughts about the dangers of hard heartedness. I talked about the potential end result danger of hard heartedness in a previous posts about Cain and Abel and then expanded that with what happens if we allow too much time to pass in my post about the need for immediacy. And now I have a question. How come we harden our hearts in the first place? Are we self protecting? Are we incapable of seeing the other person as a fellow human, also loved and created by God? Or are they an it, a mere object in my way? Or do we miss the grace in the moment that lofty callings like forgiveness, empathy and loving our enemies sneak up on us? Are we so intent on being right and of winning that we miss the gift of love? Or are we simply selfish? And what about idols in our heart? Our "if onlys", those demands that have convinced that "if only" this or that will happen, then all will be as it should be. The idols in our hearts - those things we can't live wit...