History, Family and Forgiveness

When future historians write about the years of Clinton/Trump hostilities, I wonder what they will find most destructive.

Will they call it the era that granted casual public acceptance of the bully? Will they write about how the cry “fake news” became a knee jerk evasion by powerful public figures when confronted with facts they did not want to acknowledge? Will they write about a political partisanship that abdicated statesmanship and basic respect for the acts of governing in order to maintain personal privilege and power?

Will they write about a fearful white evangelical Christianity that sold its soul for a bowl of political porridge and in doing so became morally shriveled? Will they write that friends and family were torn apart by cultural turmoil not seen since the years of Vietnam War protests?

Though such musings are often on my mind, they are heightened as I have just finished rereading Pat Conroy’s book “Beach Music.”

Through the power of his fictional characters, Conroy recalls the years of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. For better and worse, his characters find that their lives have been powerfully colored by the family in which they grew up, the friends they made and the world events that swirled around them.

Having been a student in those chaotic days, and knowing that many who read this are of similar history, I wondered whether we are replaying some of the same issues without quite knowing what we are doing.

We do not choose our family but we are shaped to a large degree by the experiences we have in those families. Abuse, alcoholism, privilege, courage, hard work, good luck and loving intentions were the mix of parental contributions to the coming of age of the young characters in the book.

Those characters, close friends through high school, were then set in college in 1970. With the Kent State killings, most turned firmly against the Vietnam War while one became an undercover informer and betrayed the others from his own sense of patriotic duty. The story revolves around the hurt, hatred and ultimate reconciliation of these friends.

Who lived through the years recounted in this fiction without being caught up to some degree with division, mistrust, hatred, courage, duty, cowardice, self-righteous posturing, indignant condemnation of “opponents” and some lasting scars? Because of these kinds of memories I find troubling parallels with current events.

It is forgiveness that brings the book to its finale.

The forgiveness did not come in a superficial “let’s just forget it all happened” kind of way. Estranged family members finally came to understand, to ask for and to offer forgiveness to one another. Despite years of hatred, the college betrayer and the betrayed claimed previous years of friendship as too important to throw away. The central character finally acknowledged his own contributions to the alienation he experienced and came to see himself as petty and arrogant rather than merely a blameless victim.

More than even the reminiscences about the influences on my own college years, it is the theme of forgiveness that moves me to this writing. We Romans have been exposed to astounding stories of forgiveness in the past couple of months.

In the HUG event in February, we heard about forgiveness coming from Pastor Eric Manning. The members of Mother Emanuel church in Charleston chose to forgive murderer Dylan Roof because, in the words of Rev. Manning, “there is one community we all share — we are all human beings.”

In March, Mary Johnson came to Rome with the man who murdered her son; they shared how she came to forgive him and how that act developed into an ongoing ministry.

These were not accounts of what martyred German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” They were accounts of profound hurt and profound determination to grasp a faith that recognizes hatred as the destroyer of the hater’s soul.

Only a fool would claim it is easy to forgive when one has been hurt. Even minor insults nag and chafe — we want to get even, to hurt back, to exile the one that has hurt us. When the hurt is profound, the thought of forgiveness is almost inconceivable.

And yet for those of us who try to follow the teachings of Jesus, we must deal with the demands to “turn the other cheek” and to forgive “seventy times seven.”

The political partisans don’t make such absurd demands on our soul; they are perfectly satisfied to encourage revenge and hitting back 10 times as hard as hit. One need only follow Twitter or Facebook to see how bullying, bitterness and suspicion create animosity between strangers and friends alike.

But there was a third event in the last two months that emphasized forgiveness. That event was called Easter, and it is the central message to all of Christianity. God forgives despite having countless reasons to not do so. Who might you and I need to forgive?! REV. GARY BATCHELOR Osmani Simanca, Brazil