January 30, 2010
My swimming instructor directs my next exercise with the words “Let’s go ahead … .” That’s good advice. And it brings to mind an event that happened recently.
A man in Seattle received a telephone call from his daughter in Chicago. She was in tears as she told the story of what had just happened to her. Crying between her sentences, she explained that she rode the train to a supermarket. With a full bag of groceries she reboarded the train for home. At one stop, when the doors were about to close, a man leading a little boy ran down the aisle, snatched up her bag and rushed out onto the platform. The doors closed and left the girl with a startled gasp.
“What am I going to do, Daddy? That was $50 of groceries! He ran away before I could stop him! The police won’t ever catch him!” More tears.
Now it was the father’s turn. “Look, dear. Imagine what desperate pressure that man must have been under to steal in public while his son watched. He must have been miserable to make a move like that. You’re not in anything like the trouble he must be in. Put it behind you and move ahead.”
As he recounted this story, I was proud that my son would have such an understanding of people. No, the bag of groceries was gone beyond recovery; the police would be of no help. The real issue was the man who was driven to steal. Could my granddaughter appreciate his struggle? Could she put that desperate act behind her and move ahead? No anger, no blame, no judgment — only a settled awareness of another human being’s awful condition.
I learned an important lesson from her father.
Satchel Paige, an old-time baseball pitcher, advised: “Don’t look back — something may be gaining on you!” I guess that was what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote, “ ‘I will repay,’ says the Lord.”
I was impressed with Gandhi’s actions when India was being freed from the imperial rule of Britain. He might have focused on the awful punishments and imprisonments and harsh treatment and killings suffered by his people — they had been badly used. But Gandhi instead spoke out boldly and persuasively about the future organization of India as a democratic republic.
And when Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the insufferable violence against African-Americans in our country, he projected the vision he had about the coming age of equality and justice. He might have ranted about fire hoses and attack dogs and lynchings and roadside killings and “Bull” Connor’s vicious attacks on his people, but King caught people’s imagination as he appealed to “the better angels of their nature” and called for a more humane future.
I learned a lot from my son as he counseled my granddaughter in Chicago.
Vengeance and harsh judgments do not set things right. A challenge that calls out our highest purposes is a positive way to move into the future.
Larry Gruman is a retired Congregational — now United Church of Christ — minister. This column is coordinated by Lane Interfaith Alliance to offer inspiration, share personal spiritual experiences and bring a deeper understanding of individual faith perspectives. For information visit www.laneinterfaithalliance.org or call 541-344-0430.