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Choosing Forgiveness

October 30, 2011 By 1 Comment

Bud Welch’s 23-year-old daughter, Julie, was killed when the Murrah Federal Building was bombed in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. He wrote in 2001 about his journey and struggle in the process of forgiveness.

Statue outside the Murrah bldg in OK city. Below statue reads "And Jesus Wept"

“All my life I have opposed the death penalty. Friends used to tell me that if anyone ever killed one of my family members, I would change. But I always said I’d stick to my guns. Until April 19.

The first four or five weeks after the bombing I had so much anger, pain, hatred and revenge, that I realized why, when someone is charged with a violent crime, they transport him in a bullet-proof vest. It’s because people like me would try to kill him.

By the end of 1995 I was in such bad shape, I was drinking heavily and smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. I was stuck, emotionally, on April 19. I just couldn’t get over it. But I knew I had to do something about it. That’s when I went down to the bombing site.

It was a cold January afternoon, and I stood there watching hundreds of people walking along the chain link fence that surrounded the lot where the Murrah Building had stood. I was thinking about the death penalty, and how I wanted nothing more than to see Timothy McVeigh, and anyone else responsible for the bombing, fried.

But I was also beginning to wonder whether I would really feel any better once they were executed. Every time I asked myself that question, I got the same answer: No. Nothing positive would come from it. It wouldn’t bring Julie back. After all, it was hatred and revenge that made me want to see them dead, and those two things were the very reason that Julie and 167 others were dead….

Forgiveness is a struggle, but it’s one I need to wage. Forgiving is not something you just wake up one morning and decide to do. You have to work through your anger and your hatred as long as it’s there. You try to live each day a little better than the one before.”

Source: The Plough Reader Spring 2001

H/t to Inward/Outward

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The Myth of “Everyone Else”

October 25, 2011 By 2 Comments

One evening last week my wife, Mindi, was frantically searching for a “paper” that needed to be signed and returned to school with our 1st grade son Max. After

From Hugh MacLeod's Gapingvoid Blog

an exasperated, resigned sigh, she said “Why can’t we get it together? What’s wrong with us? It seems like everyone else has it all together except us.”

“I hear ya.” I said. “I feel that way too–alot. But I know for a fact that everybody doesn’t have it all together.”

Despite well maintained homes, vehicles, clothing, shiny credit cards, trendy Christmas cards, the latest in Halloween décor, and the smiles no one has it all together. The reality is that on any given day most people….

…feel stuck in the quicksand of grief watching life pass them by.
…put their lives on hold in order to take care of a sick relative.
…watch urgent items on their “to do” list fall through the cracks because life served them up something critical which demanded all their attention.
…worry they are not doing enough, saying the right things or doing too much for their kids.
…feel as though they should be doing something more meaningful, “purpose driven” with their lives.
…regret not spending enough time with or saying I love you enough to a loved one before they died
…live beyond their means
…get behind on their taxes.
…regret making poor decisions.
…sleep, eat, drink, spend, talk, surf, play too much.
…pray to little, not well enough.
…put off important things to play with their kids.
…put off their kids to get important things done.
…feel a mixture of guilt and anxiety about both of the previous two
…don’t exercise—or at least as often as they should.
…don’t follow their doctor’s, therapist’s advice.
…feel like they’re not getting anything out of Mass.
…believe everyone’s holier than them
…wish their kids would eat their vegetables.
…wish they ate their vegetables.
…see the connection between the previous two but don’t feel like doing anything about it.
…have messy houses which they scramble to clean (throw stuff in closets and under beds) or have cleaned before guests arrive.
…put off visiting our sick or aging relative.
…don’t go to the graveyard.
…don’t visit relatives or friends in the nursing home.
…forget to send thank you notes.
…have to borrow money from relatives, friends and institutions.
…have had days when they don’t want to get out of bed.
…wonder if God hears their prayers.
…wonder if God cares.

St. Paul said it best: we all fall somewhere short of God’s glory. This isn’t a pass to be a “slacker”, but does help to explain why no one has nor ever will have it all together. It invites us to trust a God who dwells within and among us who does hold it all together. It points to the counterintuitive love of a God who cares more about being together with us than us holding it together for him.

Prayer: God, give us the grace to allow you to be the Lord of the Messiness and Untogetherness of our Lives. Amen.

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The Keeper of the Questions

October 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I’m in the final stretch of completing my new book. (yaye!) One chapter is entitled “Teens don’t need us for answers. They need us to hold them in their questions.” Searching for a quote to begin the chapter, I stumbled across this gem by Mike Yaconelli in my worn out copy of his book Dangerous Wonder.

“In a healthy family children’s questions are not about answers—their questions are about relationship. Children intuitively know their questions are welcome, appreciated. Safe. And not only are children’s questions welcome, but they are welcome. In a welcoming environment where questions are safe, children are infected with curiosity—a fascination with truth, an unrelenting hunger to know and be known, to capture and be captured, to touch and to be touched. When these children finally fall asleep at night, they are secure in the knowledge that the one who loves them is bigger than all their questions. They can sleep deeply, knowing they are safe in the arms of the Keeper of their questions”[emphasis added] (p. 35).

The Power of a Good Question

I’m often asked by catechists, teachers and parents “How would you answer this question: _______ (insert any number of tough questions posed by adolescents)” and usually model for them my answer by asking, “How would you answer that question?” I’m not being pedantic. I’m trying to show them that with the right questions we can lead people to deeper answers that they won’t soon forget. Often, when teens (and adults) want when they ask us those difficult faith questions, they’re not seeking an intellectual answer. They can find those online. They want us to validate their asking of the question and lead them to truth–not give it to them.

In over 30 years of formal education, I have one regret. It is that I spent more time amassing answers than I did I collecting questions. Today, I have a growing collection in a three ring binder near my desk. Today my students, both young and old, my children and my clients don’t need my answers as much as they need me to keep them, to hold them in their questions.

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