The problem was not a shortage of sincerity but an excess of zeal in which self-belief overrode objective judgment.

— —Jonathan Aitken, commenting in The Guardian on former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and his role in the lead-up to, and the aftermath of, the Iraq war. Aitken says that “once the Chilcot inquiry establishes the truth about Iraq, we should be quick not to judge, but to forgive.”

Trent Gilliss, online editor

Attachment and Destruction Goran Vrcel, guest contributor At the age of ten, I stood at the edge of the hill, gazing into the distant flames that waved above the forested mountains. At that moment I knew that kids my age had lost their homes, their innocence, their land. I quickly learned what nationalism, pride, and hate meant in a falling nation of Yugoslavia. Being Serbian, I never learned to hate the Croats, as many did. I rather felt sympathy as a Croatian town waved goodbye to us in flames. In 1995, Croatia successfully executed their plans. Ethnic cleansing. We left our homeland, my heaven on earth. But the war taught me that no violence is solved through violence itself. The violent tactics varied, but the pain remained the same for both sides. The war between Serbs and the Croats has greatly altered my views on attachment to ideas, beliefs, and social standards. How can a loving father nurture his kids, and then be sent out to kill others? How can a child, forced to become aware of this by simple observations or intuition, accept his or her father in the aftermath? A child remembers well, but at the same time, one can unconsciously forgive, become persuaded by the dominance of another, or one can easily conceal those lingering memories buried deep within for prolonged periods of time. But the real question is: how is it that some people are capable of such destruction, yet, at the same time, they are competent of expressing love and compassion towards their family members and or society? I listened to a group of soldiers recapturing the memories of their “victorious” battle. One described the time when he forced an elderly woman to lift her skirt up so that he could shoot her, another pulled the dentures out of a dead peasant’s mouth, and another told a story of a man beheading a villager with a chainsaw. All of these men returned home to their loving families. Not long after the flames had descended into the ashes, my 93 year-old great-grandmother said to us, “You children do not know that you are alive.” This was the beginning of my awakening, even though, at the time, I had no knowledge of what awakening meant. But some sort of insight penetrated through to the core of my being. Years later, I started to believe that attachment to people, ideas, beliefs, and the ways of our society is what eventually might alienate us from others, and construct a possible pathway to ignorance. These solders were not attached to the opposing society, therefore, it became easy for them to terminate the other side in the most atrocious way possible. When a sense of self is defined through pride and superiority, then it becomes work of an ego, which can lead to delusion and possible destruction. Since we live in a more diverse world, we must learn the meaning of the word “us” as opposed to us or them, or me and him/her. It is crucial that we become aware not only of our differences, but of our similarities as human beings. Awareness and action is the key. So how do I forgive? Through educating others by bringing awareness and observing their progress. Mr. Vrcel currently works as a photographer and designer living in Schererville, Indiana. All photos in this essay by Goran Vrcel and used with his permission. He submitted this essay through our First Person Outreach page. Submit yours too.
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Attachment and Destruction
Goran Vrcel, guest contributor

At the age of ten, I stood at the edge of the hill, gazing into the distant flames that waved above the forested mountains. At that moment I knew that kids my age had lost their homes, their innocence, their land. I quickly learned what nationalism, pride, and hate meant in a falling nation of Yugoslavia.

Being Serbian, I never learned to hate the Croats, as many did. I rather felt sympathy as a Croatian town waved goodbye to us in flames. In 1995, Croatia successfully executed their plans. Ethnic cleansing. We left our homeland, my heaven on earth.

But the war taught me that no violence is solved through violence itself. The violent tactics varied, but the pain remained the same for both sides. The war between Serbs and the Croats has greatly altered my views on attachment to ideas, beliefs, and social standards. How can a loving father nurture his kids, and then be sent out to kill others? How can a child, forced to become aware of this by simple observations or intuition, accept his or her father in the aftermath?

Goran Vrcel's Bedroom

A child remembers well, but at the same time, one can unconsciously forgive, become persuaded by the dominance of another, or one can easily conceal those lingering memories buried deep within for prolonged periods of time.

But the real question is: how is it that some people are capable of such destruction, yet, at the same time, they are competent of expressing love and compassion towards their family members and or society?

I listened to a group of soldiers recapturing the memories of their “victorious” battle. One described the time when he forced an elderly woman to lift her skirt up so that he could shoot her, another pulled the dentures out of a dead peasant’s mouth, and another told a story of a man beheading a villager with a chainsaw. All of these men returned home to their loving families.

Not long after the flames had descended into the ashes, my 93 year-old great-grandmother said to us, “You children do not know that you are alive.” This was the beginning of my awakening, even though, at the time, I had no knowledge of what awakening meant. But some sort of insight penetrated through to the core of my being.

Blata

Grandma Dara Does the Laundry

Grandma Dara

Grandma Dara on the Train

Years later, I started to believe that attachment to people, ideas, beliefs, and the ways of our society is what eventually might alienate us from others, and construct a possible pathway to ignorance. These solders were not attached to the opposing society, therefore, it became easy for them to terminate the other side in the most atrocious way possible. When a sense of self is defined through pride and superiority, then it becomes work of an ego, which can lead to delusion and possible destruction.

Since we live in a more diverse world, we must learn the meaning of the word “us” as opposed to us or them, or me and him/her. It is crucial that we become aware not only of our differences, but of our similarities as human beings. Awareness and action is the key. So how do I forgive? Through educating others by bringing awareness and observing their progress.

Goran VrcelMr. Vrcel currently works as a photographer and designer living in Schererville, Indiana. All photos in this essay by Goran Vrcel and used with his permission.

He submitted this essay through our First Person Outreach page. Submit yours too.

What Does Forgiveness Mean in Buddhism and Christianity
Trent Gilliss, online editor

In the wake of Brit Hume’s comments about Tiger Woods’ religious beliefs on Fox News Sunday on January 3rd,

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer invited Krista to flesh out the concepts of forgiveness and redemption in Christianity and Buddhism. Although it’s rather difficult to gain a decent understanding of these complex theological concepts in 13 minutes, several callers make some fine points — including the Buddhist idea of “letting go.”

30 Rock of the 19th Century

As the glitz of the Emmys starts to fade, and the cast of 30 Rock laugh and smile all the way back to New York with their third consecutive Best Comedy Series award, I am reminded of our pal Oscar Wilde. The writers for 30 Rock and the late playwright are all masters of wise-cracking, snappy writing and to us impart their brand of wisdom (usually backhanded).

I watched a production of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” last week, which had all the puns, double-speak, and plot twists as any of the best modern day sit-coms. In the last scene of the play, Jack finds out that a lie he’s been telling other people for years is actually true and offers this simple act of apology… sort of.

Jack. Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?

Gwendolen. I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.

Jack. My own one!

Chasuble. [To Miss Prism.] Laetitia! [Embraces her]

Miss Prism. [Enthusiastically.] Frederick! At last!

Algernon. Cecily! [Embraces her.] At last!

Jack. Gwendolen! [Embraces her.] At last!

Lady Bracknell. My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality.

Jack. On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.

Skeptical, But Hopeful, on Vick’s Return

by Colleen Scheck, producer

From my peripheral vantage point, it’s been an interesting summer to consider the character(s) of sport. Roger Federer finally won the elusive French Open, prompting reviews that “nice guys can come first.” Now that the Tour de France is over, media attention has turned to the “drivel” between Lance Armstrong and this year’s champion Alberto Contador. I’m still pondering how Tom Watson must feel after coming so close to winning the British Open, just missing setting a record for the oldest player to win a major championship. Hailed as one of the classiest players in the game, Watson drew praise and respect while the tournament temper of the most beloved player, Tiger Woods, was not overlooked in the media this time. (I’ll skip the continuing saga of steroids and baseball - see Mitch’s post.)

Michael Vick Appears Appears in Court
A nine-year-old boy shows his support for Michael Vick outside federal court in Richmond, Virginia in 2007. (photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

And now comes the annual return of the NFL. As training camps open, I find myself monitoring the future of Michael Vick now that the NFL has reinstated him post-dogfighting conviction, and reflecting on how forgiveness and second chances take the field in the elevated world of professional athletes. I’m a dog lover, you may recall, and so this one tugs at me closely. I’ve heard several reports that Vick is “a changed man” and sincerely sorry for his participation in dog-fighting rings. He’s returning to the NFL under the mentorship of former NFL coach Tony Dungy, a magnanimous sportsman, who said of Vick:

“I think Michael deserves the chance to show people he has changed and learned from past mistakes, but my true hope is that he will make sound decisions about his future and, at the same time, let people know more about the person that I’ve come to know recently. I know the public will be skeptical, but I think, over time, people will find there’s a different side to him than what they’ve seen so far.”

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, added:

“We support the principle that one should not only be allowed, but also encouraged to return to their chosen profession after fulfilling their debt to society. Michael Vick’s offenses were tragic and wrong and he has paid a debt through both prison and public ridicule. Now [Vick] can demonstrate that he can and will serve as a role model for young men in communities across the nation.”

I think that’s the best possible outcome for this situation. Eventually a team will select him, so, a la Michael McCollough, I’m inclined to calm my revenge instinct (he should not be allowed to play or make big bucks in the NFL) and embolden my forgiveness intuition (give him a chance to prove himself and return to his profession). I’m skeptical, but I will hope Vick sets a new example and writes a redeeming chapter for modern professional sports.

A Toddler’s Capacity to Forgive

Rob McGinley Myers, Associate Producer

This past weekend, I kept mulling over the content of our recent show, “Getting Revenge and Forgiveness” — especially what Michael McCullough said about how easily parents forgive their children.

I forgive my seven-year-old son every day. … Because he’s an active, inquisitive seven-year-old who sometimes accidentally elbows me in the mouth when we’re cuddling and sometimes puts Crayons on the walls. And yet it seems demeaning to call it forgiveness. … It’s just what you do with your children. You know, you accept their limitations and you move on.

As a father of two toddlers, the thing that amazes me is not how easily parents forgive their children, but how easily children forgive their parents. Every parent I know has had moments of utter exasperation and impatience with their kids that they later regretted. But when our children are little, they have an extraordinary capacity to forgive our mistakes. Krista once wrote about a Hebrew proverb that says “just before a child is born, the angel Gabriel tells her everything — all the secrets of God and the universe. Then he kisses her on the forehead, and she begins to forget it all.” So it seems that, though our children will forget it by adolescence, they are apparently born knowing the secret of forgiveness.

The poet Robyn Sarah sums it up perfectly for me in her poem Nursery, 11:00 p.m. The speaker of the poem describes coming to the end of a day when she’s been a terrible parent, wishing she could apologize for how she behaved, standing over her children as they sleep in their cribs.  She likens the forgiving sound of their breathing to a shawl being knitted in the darkness.

How warm it is, I think,
how much softer
than my deserving.

A Poet of Love & Hate & Forgiveness & Revenge by Kate Moos, managing producer Marie Howe’s new book, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, is an amazing addition to our vocabulary of love and hate, forgiveness and revenge. As the poet Tom Sleigh says, “Her language is always deeply rooted in the social world, and it never turns away from the most difficult moral problems.” In this book, her poems about the war within us between light and shadow, vision and violence, are sometimes terrifying, often funny, and always illuminating. After the Movie My friend Michael and I are walking home arguing about the movie. He says that he believes a person can love someone and still be able to murder that person. I say, No, that’s not love. That’s attachment. Michael says, No, that’s love. You can love someone, then come to a day when you’re forced to think “it’s him or me” think “me” and kill him. I say, Then it’s not love anymore. Michael says, It was love up to then though. I say, Maybe we mean different things by the same word. Michael says, Humans are complicated: love can exist even in the murderous heart. I say that what he might mean by love is desire. Love is not a feeling, I say. And Michael says, Then what is it? We’re walking along West 16th Street—a clear unclouded night—and I hear my voice repeating what I used to say to my husband: Love is action, I used to say to him. Simone Weil says that when you really love you are able to look at someone you want to eat and not eat them. Janis Joplin says, take another little piece of my heart now baby. Meister Eckhart says that as long as we love any image we are doomed to live in purgatory. Michael and I stand on the corner of 6th Avenue saying goodnight. I can’t drink enough of the tangerine spritzer I’ve just bought— again and again I bring the cold can to my mouth and suck the stuff from the hole the flip top made. What are you doing tomorrow? Michael says. But what I think he’s saying is “You are too strict. You are a nun.” Then I think, Do I love Michael enough to allow him to think these things of me even if he’s not thinking them? Above Manhattan, the moon wanes, and the sky turns clearer and colder. Although the days, after the solstice, have started to lengthen, we both know the winter has only begun. Our program “Getting Revenge and Forgiveness” is available here at speakingoffaith.org beginning Thursday, November 6th. Share your stories. (Poem reprinted with permission of the author.)
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A Poet of Love & Hate & Forgiveness & Revenge

by Kate Moos, managing producer

Marie Howe’s new book, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, is an amazing addition to our vocabulary of love and hate, forgiveness and revenge. As the poet Tom Sleigh says, “Her language is always deeply rooted in the social world, and it never turns away from the most difficult moral problems.” In this book, her poems about the war within us between light and shadow, vision and violence, are sometimes terrifying, often funny, and always illuminating.

After the Movie

My friend Michael and I are walking home arguing about the movie.
He says that he believes a person can love someone
and still be able to murder that person.

I say, No, that’s not love. That’s attachment.
Michael says, No, that’s love. You can love someone, then come to a day

when you’re forced to think “it’s him or me”
think “me” and kill him.

I say, Then it’s not love anymore.
Michael says, It was love up to then though.

I say, Maybe we mean different things by the same word.
Michael says, Humans are complicated: love can exist even in the murderous
heart.

I say that what he might mean by love is desire.
Love is not a feeling, I say. And Michael says, Then what is it?

We’re walking along West 16th Street—a clear unclouded night—and I hear
my voice
repeating what I used to say to my husband: Love is action, I used to say to
him.

Simone Weil says that when you really love you are able to look at someone
you want to eat and not eat them.

Janis Joplin says, take another little piece of my heart now baby.

Meister Eckhart says that as long as we love any image we are doomed to live
in purgatory.

Michael and I stand on the corner of 6th Avenue saying goodnight.
I can’t drink enough of the tangerine spritzer I’ve just bought—

again and again I bring the cold can to my mouth and suck the stuff from
the hole the flip top made.

What are you doing tomorrow? Michael says.
But what I think he’s saying is “You are too strict. You are a nun.”

Then I think, Do I love Michael enough to allow him to think these things of
me even if he’s not thinking them?

Above Manhattan, the moon wanes, and the sky turns clearer and colder.
Although the days, after the solstice, have started to lengthen,

we both know the winter has only begun.

Our program “Getting Revenge and Forgiveness” is available here at speakingoffaith.org beginning Thursday, November 6th. Share your stories.

(Poem reprinted with permission of the author.)

Singing about Revenge and Forgiveness

by Amara Hark-Weber, production intern

Over the past week, I have been collecting songs about revenge and forgiveness that were suggested by our listeners. Spending hours in the MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) music library, I thought not only about the artists and songs that I was looking for, but also about times in my own life were I have felt the sentiment of one of these songs or another. The most meaningful part of going through this music has been the reminder that I am far from alone in fierce rages that I have felt or gentle unclamping as I have let go of past wrongs. I’ve listened to scores of songs and looked across thousands of CDs, all the while thinking about the many ways that we think and talk about revenge or forgiveness. It has been startling to see how these complex sentiments apply themselves to my interactions with friends, family, and, of course, politics.

At the tail end of this project, I can honestly say that my thoughts about both revenge and forgiveness have changed greatly from the time when I set out. Several nights ago, as I received calls and texts from friends and family around the country and the world watching the election results come in and both candidates speak, I thought again about revenge and forgiveness. I cannot describe the spectrum of emotion that I have felt over the course of the past few weeks, and last night it came to a head when a Ghanaian friend called from Abuja, Nigeria where he is training with the BBC. He was weeping. We talked for some time about politics, but also hope and forgiveness, tolerance and revenge. We questioned the fine line separating our emotional responses from events that swirl around us, and the ways in which our gut reaction is often so far from the words that we use or the actions that we make.

As I spoke with my friend, I was glad to have these songs to draw upon as we discussed the many reasons why and how politics become emotional. By the end of the conversation we had agreed that forgiveness was not so different from tolerance, and revenge often like poison ivy — so satisfying to itch, but with each scratch spreading the rash. And politics, like religion, like love, family and so much else, is just a lens through which we see the others, ourselves, the past, our future.

Revenge and forgiveness are words of motion, although the songs that they inspire are emotional snapshots that do not move or change. Like the images in these songs, speaking with someone half way around the world about events that were unfolding in real time was something that I will not easily forget. This political season is not something that I cannot forget. This time in my life, when I am a newcomer in the city of my childhood is something that I do not want to forget. And the ties that we all have to people and events far, far away from ourselves is something that I must not forget ever.

I know that politics can be bitter, and that many people are elated and many disappointed. I also know that my emotional reaction is neither revenge nor forgiveness. It is not tolerance or hope or bitterness. It is still too raw for any of these polished words. It is something that will take time to shape. And eventually it will become polished. And then it will be tarnished. And I will move forward. And everyone will have moved forward. Emotion, events, persons, places, politics do not stand still, and although we may record songs that capture moments, and those songs remind us of this or that time, it is important to remember that everything is now different.