It’s a tough lesson to learn this one. Right from when we are tiny we are told in books, newspapers, TV and films about something called justice. People talk about people getting what they deserve, and of Khama. Do we believe though that justice actually exists? Do people get what they deserve? Is it true that good people always prosper (a strong Jewish belief, because God smiles upon them) and that those that suffer are only the bad guys?
The more I look at this world it appears to me that people very rarely get what they deserve. Oh, they certainly get! Then there is that greatly quoted Bible phrase “The Sun Shines on the Righteous!”. That quote goes on to say “and on the unrighteous as well” King David brought in “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth because some of the 12 tribes were killing 200 people for the loss of one of their own. AN outcome that was cheered as being great justice by the populace. David said, “No, the punishment must fit the crime.”
That all sounds fine and dandy until you consider this countries response to the bombing of Coventry by the Germans in WW2. We reduced all of Dresden to the ground. A place of no military importance at all, a purely residential graveyard.
So, when Jesus comes along and says to his supporters to forgive even the most loathsome and bitterest of enemies, a lot of his follows said “no stuff that! let’s kill and maim them whenever we get the opportunity.” The mob often believes that is the answer and the fallout in our modern world is we see teenagers commit suicide for they believe the world is against them personally.
Radical Acceptence is a book by Tara Brach
There are things that are hard to swallow. Things like the mob murdering your greatest friend. Very difficult.
DO WE HAVE TO JUDGE AT ALL THOUGH?
Can it be that we can say in all humility “how disastrous that this has happened, BUT I have no way of rectifying the event, nothing I can do will put it right, it is now part of the past, the past is dead, it is gone. It is now ‘What is’ and will always from this moment on, be so.
In ‘a Christmas Carol’ the spirit says to Scrooge “these are but shadows of the past!”
Ebenezer can plead for the future by saying “I will not be the man I was…” BUT his past remains always his past.
It is very strange that when you accept the fact that something has happened, and cannot be undone, no matter how much “thought effort” you put into it, you realise something. I CANNOT FIX THIS. This is beyond my control. Then you see only one way out left for you. You must drop it, leave it and let it go. It is exhausting and futile to pursue vengeance. Don’t get me wrong, if someone murdered my wife I would never be happy about that, but fix it? Nothing can fix it. I can rant, rage, threaten, offer equal violence to the perpetrator BUT it will not fix it. Christmas present says to Scrooge “These two children are man’s, the boy is called ignorance the girl is called want. Beware them both, but above all the boy, for written upon his forehead is the word DOOM.”
Doom is the end of all things, the wages of sin if you like, death. Um! Merry Christmas! God bless us every one!
