Born in Israel, Rami Efal, an author, illustrator, and descendant of Holocaust survivors, wrote us that in June he will be part of a multi-faith retreat in Auschwitz/Birkenau in Poland to bear witness at a site where members of his family were killed in the Holocaust. “The retreat will include meditation and Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Buddhist liturgical services, as well as a name-reading of victims,” he writes on his blog. “I will be reading the names of my grandparents siblings, mothers, fathers as well as the names of friends’ relatives who have fallen in the different wars of Israel.”
A gifted artist, Efal is offering portaiture services in exchange for donations that will help him travel to Poland for the retreat. He is also offering to “read the names of your family members, whether they died at the Jewish Holocaust, or in any other conflict of past or present. I especially invite my German, Polish, Russian, Jordanian, Syrian, Egyptian and Palestinian friends.” Check out his blog for more details, to see his beautiful artwork, and his new book, Never Forget, Never Forgive, A Graphic Novel.
This reflection is from Thom Andrews, director of Kalamazoo’s Season of Forgiveness.
How do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?
In Dublin (California, that is) they held a parade (not unusual). However this parade also was a “kindness walk” in which people were encouraged to help spread kindness “by walking in the parade, handing out candies, smiling, waving, hugging, and encouraging others to be kind.”
What a great idea! The spark for this comes from SpreadKindness.org whose purpose is “to inspire others to be kind, compassionate and loving to one another - at home, at work, and in every interaction throughout the day.” They further point out that “No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another.”
Practicing kindness is a fundamental of forgiveness, and I encourage every one of you to make St. Patrick’s Day a day to spread kindness. If you’re wondering how to do this, here’s one suggestion: smile at everyone you see - look them in the eye and simply smile (I bet they smile back). Click here for other suggestions.
Kindness shows respect and care for the other person and expresses our equality one with another. Because, as is often said, “We’re all in this together.” So, as we all become Irish for a day, let’s celebrate not only “the luck of the Irish” but also the kindness of our hearts.
Collect as many smiles as you can this St. Patrick’s Day and let it brighten the day.
Quote for reflection throughout the week
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love . Lao-Tzu
From the Web
Here are two Web sites that are dedicated to encouraging the practice of kindness–explore and see what motivates you: ActsOfKindness.org and SpreadKindness.org
A few weeks ago, a fundraiser was held for Sheryl Stack, widow of Joe Stack who crashed a plane into an office building in Austin, Texas, where IRS employee Vernon Hunter was killed. What makes this unusual was the participation of performers from the Greater Mount Zion Baptist Church where Hunter was a member.
“My heart grieves for the loss of life caused by my husband in the tragic events of Feb. 18, 2010,” Sheryl Stack said in her first public comments since the crash. “My prayers are continually with the widow and family of Vernon Hunter, and I pray also for Shane Hill and all the others who were injured and or traumatized by this catastrophe.”
Reaching across the pain and loss caused as a result of Joe Stack’s actions to help Sheryl Stack and her daughter show a great deal of compassion. Read more about this event in the statesman.com article.
This commentary by Israel Rafalovich from England’s Economic Voice, provides a much-needed push for the role of forgiveness in international relations and precedes a book he is writing on the same topic. In the rare air of international negotiations and relations, it’s easy to objectify the people impacted. Rafalovich argues that politicians “have to be able to develop empathy for their enemies and not invest themselves in dehumanising their enemies.”
“Forgiveness has to be possible in politics,” he writes, “if there is to be any hope of former enemies to be able to-co-exist as members of the international community. For we learn the need to forgive and be forgiven from our experience of living together with others. In forgiveness we affirm our readiness to act anew and to establish new relationships. When we do achieve the goal of being neighbours to people who were once our enemies, than we will see forgiveness in politics in action.”
Spring is almost here–and not a moment too soon for the snow-weary! Whether you’re wishing for more full spectrum light to get through these last weeks of winter or reveling in a symphony for the senses evoked by an early spring, nature’s lesson about strength and patience is right under your feet.
Pushing through the frozen ground, each bulb, shoot, and sprout demonstrates the tenacity and power it takes to be reborn in the moment. The earth does not give way easily to new growth. And new growth does not wait for the temperature to rise and the soil to soften. It comes in adverse conditions, before everything can be staged and perfect. For us, too, new growth can come with challenges, and often does.
Cultivating love, forgiveness, and compassion is no different. Year after year, we negotiate long term relationships, make new ones, and end others. There is always something new to contend with, something unexpected–joy alongside disappointments, beauty alongside devastation, high expectations alongside imperfection. Life doesn’t let up.
The strength and resilience it takes to persevere is like the strength it takes for the crocus to push through the solid, cold earth that surrounds it. And like the crocus, we do it–one step, one shoot at a time.
The beauty of spring is undeniable. It is worth the wait and worth the struggle. If we look at our lives as inextricably connected within a larger web of life, then the strength it takes to endure in love, practice forgiveness, and behave compassionately seems infinitely small, even natural, compared to its rewards. Each new shoot peeking up from the earth attests to that.
This poem was written in 2008 by Adeola Fearon in response to and in honor of WTVI/Charlotte’s Campaign for Love & Forgiveness conversations.
Garden of Forgiveness
in the garden of forgiveness
it takes courage to hear
“I’m sorry”
as much as it does
to plan something
that feeds the soul
the quality of life
inspired
by a moving experience
touched by an angel
sent to elevate your life
to slow down
create a bridge
between heart and mind
to one day share
with your children
wise words
making an impact
joy
optimism
diversity
share your spirit
for a new
tomorrow
how passionate are you
to see things from a new view
to flower
possibilities
It can be hard to tell what heartache those around us are experiencing and what a small kindness, a smile, or a touch can do to help. Sometimes we are the one in pain and tending to our own heart is what’s really needed. And sometimes just bringing to our awareness what others may be feeling can open our hearts and change our behavior.
Reaching out to others is not only kind, it is good for our health. And, according to research, kindness can become contagious. (No Purell needed here!) This month of Valentine’s Day (symbolically, at least) can be a reminder that love, listening, and presence are some of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and others–from those who are close and important to us to those we pass in the hall at work, on the street, or in a checkout line.
Knowing that loss is inevitable can actually open our hearts to others and awaken us to each moment. So, why not “fall in love” with an ever-widening circle of people, like Bobbie Willis, a contributor to The Sun Magazine’s “Readers Write” section describes so beautifully.
“What saves me from the tedium of another day,” she writes, “is falling hopelessly in love with the people I meet: the curly-haired barista at the coffee shop who hands me my change as if dipping his fingers into holy water; the girl with Down syndrome who talks loudly about vacationing with her grandmother; the elderly couple who grow giant bubble-gum-colored puffs of dahlias at the corner of Twelfth and Chambers; the toddler girl across the street who bleats sweetly, “Mama come see!”; I fall in love with the deep timbre of my brother’s laugh; the way my mother says my name; the way my father calls me sweetheart; the way my sweetheart calls me baby.”
Kathleen Clark, Ph.D., J.D., who provided this entry, has practiced law and mediation in the San Francisco Bay Area for twenty years. She is the founder/CEO of Servant Lawyership. She practices law, convenes symposiums, and writes and speaks on collaborative practices in health care.
Michael Woods died of a heart attack on a gurney in the emergency room of Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island. A heart monitor was ordered but the order was never carried out.
Michael’s older brother, actor James Woods, sought compensation for his brother’s son, Peyton, but more than that, he wanted acknowledgement of responsibility, accountability, and an apology. Although Woods knew that litigation would only provide his family money, nothing more, he saw litigation as the only option he had.
The case proceeded to trial with Sandy Coletta, the new CEO of Kent Hospital, playing an active role. During the third week of trial, Coletta told her attorneys that she “absolutely” needed to talk with Woods, personally. At first, Woods resisted.
Decof told me that in his experience, he’d never seen or heard of a situation in which a public apology and acknowledgment, had occurred in the middle of a medical malpractice trial, especially when a settlement was involved. Decof asked Woods to meet with Coletta, knowing that a meeting was the only avenue to acknowledgment of responsibility and an apology. He suggested that “Woods might be able to look at the hospital differently through Coletta”.
That’s exactly what happened.
Coletta told Woods, “I don’t know if anyone from Kent has ever said this to you, but I am so sorry about what happened to your brother.” She acknowledged that “Mistakes were made” and “the hospital did not follow through on the order.” According to Decof, the apology shifted Woods’ frame of mind from “search and destroy to a conciliatory”. Woods said he transitioned from hurt and anger to hope.
Although the advent of this new practice, collaborative law in health care, has been daunting, my spirit, determination, and dedication to collaborative practices after adverse medical events was reinvigorated by this 2009 medical malpractice/wrongful death case of Michael Woods. The case was filed in July, 2006, had all the traditional elements of medical malpractice litigation. James Woods was angry, bitter, and alienated, feeling disrespected and unrecognized. Although James’ mother was not a party, she was an integral part of the litigation process.
By the end, the case had many elements of reconciliation: apology, acknowledgment, forgiveness, and collaboration, particularly transformative because the case was considered unsettlable. For me, this case was and continues to be about our shared humanity, understanding, and caring about each other.
Were you aware that President Obama signed a bill in December that included a resolution offering “an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States”? I wasn’t.
When I surfaced from reading an article on apologies the other day, I noticed a tweet from Simon Cohen, aka globaltolerance: “Imp news: Obama apologises to Native Americans http://bit.ly/5qOGEG.” I jumped to the link and read Sean McCollum’s Teaching Tolerance article on the passage and signing of the 2010 Defense Appropriations Act last month which included an apology “to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States.”
Where was this news? I searched the Web for a news story. Surely there had been coverage of this. Nothing substantial surfaced. As the Teaching Tolerance post points out, news attention was elsewhere–namely, McCollum states, on Tiger Woods and health reform.
An apology for institutionalized, horrific, and sustained transgressions against Native Americans in this country was buried in a defense bill and eclipsed in the news.
While an apology doesn’t erase transgressions–especially of this magnitude–it is important. And giving voice to the apology, to me, would make it more real. Perhaps this is a good time to revisit the power of apology and why it’s needed, and in the process build discussion–and visibility–around this apology.
According to On Apology author, Aaron Lazare, in an article in The Compassionate Instinct, “there are four parts to the structure of an effective apology…acknowledgment of the offense; explanation; expressions of remorse, shame, and humility; and reparations.” An effective, heartfelt apology can lead to forgiveness, even reconciliation, according to Lazare. To do this, he writes, it must satisfy one or more of seven psychological needs of those offended: the restoration of dignity, validation that the victim was not responsible, agreeing that the harm committed was wrong, assuring that the offended party is safe from a repeat offense, reparative justice, reparations, and dialogue between the offender and offended
While the resolution clearly makes no reparations, perhaps we can see it in the light of a work in progress and learn from it. According to Sean McCollum, “it finally owns up to this country’s record of ill-conceived, bigoted, and often sadistic treatment of Native Americans. And perhaps, like any honorable apology should, it sets the stage for making amends.”
Now if it would only get some coverage… Pass it on.
This reflection is from Thom Andrews, director of Kalamazoo’s Season of Forgiveness.
During this past weekend we again marked the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The question it brought to mind for me this year was this: can forgiveness make its way into mainstream civic discourse?
One of the many unsettling dynamics in our political arena is how thin-skinned our politicians make themselves out to be (though they probably aren’t so). Individuals are quick to take great personal offense at the mere implication of a slight, and these individuals are quick to go to the media and speak of their rage. The strategy becomes not so much to rise above the fray as to become the fray that pushes down the other person.
Exceptions to this political game seem few and far between. I wonder, however, if they aren’t so few but simply less reported. One recent exception I discovered is in Malaysia where, in the wake of multiple attacks on churches, Christians and Muslims and “even politicians across the political divide” condemned the attacks. They made statements and took actions so that “an air of repentance and forgiveness prevailed.” The writer called the acts “unprecedented.”
Wisdom and maturity can prevail over shallow political maneuvering. Let’s help make this our future.
Quote for reflection throughout the week
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. –Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the web
Here is the article describing the situation in Malaysia that I mention above.
This article echoes Dr. King’s call to disarm our enemies with love.
