Thoughts provoked by Tutu

I have been reading No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu. It Chronicles Tutu’s involvement with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up to heal the wounds of South Africa after the disbanding of it’s apartheid government. He goes through a number of stories of army personnel and police officers wanting to be forgiven for things they have done. They admit to the things they’ve done just asking for forgiveness from the families of the men and women they killed. Tutu talks about the ability to forgive and he is amazed time and time again when men and women can forgive other men and women for the crimes they’ve committed. The families didn’t want justice to be carried out by having these people put to death and didn’t want to get even they wanted closure and healing, then it made me realize that forgiveness really is justice. It brought to mind Isaiah 58:12 “Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets in which to dwell.” When I see repairer of the breach (standing in the gap) I think of fixing things from the way they are to the way they should be which is how I see justice. Forgiveness sets right a wrong; it repairs the breach that has been created between people that should never have been there.

Excerpt form No Future With out Forgiveness:
“There may indeed have been moments when God may have regretted creating us. But I am certain there have been many more times when God has looked and seen all these wonderful people who have shone in the dark night of evil and torture and abuses and suffering; shone as they have demonstrated their nobility of spirit, their magnanimity as they have been ready to forgive, and so they have dispelled the murkiness, and fresh air has blown into that situation to transfigure it. It had filled people with new hope that despair, darkness, anger, and resentment and hatred would not have the last word. There is hope that a new situation could come about when enemies might become friends again, when the dehumanized perpetrator might be helped to recover his lost humanity. This is not a wild irresponsible dream. It has happened and it is happening and there is hope that nightmares will end, hope that seemingly intractable problems will find solutions and that God has some tremendous fellow-workers, some outstanding partners out there.

Each of us has a capacity for great good and that is what makes God say it was well worth the risk to bring us into existence. Extraordinarily, God the omnipotent One depends on us, puny, fragile, vulnerable as we may be, to accomplish God’s purpose for good, for justice, for forgiveness and healing and wholeness. God has no one but us. St. Augustine of Hippo has said, “God without us will not as we without God cannot.”…To offer love and forgiveness is not a sign of mental weakness instead a sign of spiritual strength.” ~~Desmond Tutu Praise the Lord.

More than meets the eye...

I saw the movie Transformers and it was the most amazing movie I have ever seen in my entire life. It was absolutely amazing. It wasn’t all just explosions and special effects. They gave the Transformers personalities, and that made a huge difference rather than just having these huge machines walking around, transforming and fighting each other, they had human like qualities. The one part of the movie that really got me thinking though was during the fight scene, between Optimus Prime and Megatron, when Meagtron said “Your problem Prime is that you always defend the weak” (referring to humans as the weak). At first I thought to myself well, that’s a good thing, and then after it sunk in I said to myself DUH!! Who else would you defend if you didn’t defend the weak? Why defend the strong they really don’t need to be defended they have the advantage? That’s probably what God was thinking to himself when he told us in Isaiah to “ Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.” (Isaiah 1:17 NLT) That’s who we should help we don’t need to defend the wealthy and the people living in upper middle class suburbia. We need to fight for the rights of the people who have no one else the people who feel like the whole world is against them. It doesn’t make sense the other way around. But I like the way Optimus Prime put it “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.” Praise the Lord.