633 sligo avenue, silver spring, md 20910
633 sligo avenue, silver spring, md 20910
Rev. Susan G. Astarita
March 12, 2006
Dear Friends,
I am sorry I am not able to be with you for the celebration of our companion relationship in South Africa. Please know that I am with you in spirit and hold you up in my prayers this day.
As my contribution to the celebration of this relationship I offer these wonderful words written by Desmond Tutu in his book No Future Without Forgiveness, an account of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a pioneering international event. It was the first time that any country sought to move forward from despotism to democracy by exposing the atrocities committed in the past and achieving reconciliation with its former oppressors.
His words on forgiveness, well for us to hear in this season of Lent, do not repeat platitudes about forgiveness, but present a bold spirituality that recognizes the horrors people can inflict upon one another, yet retains a sense of idealism about reconciliation.
Tutu speaks in this way (p. 270-1) "...True reconciliation is not cheap. It cost God the death of His only begotten Son.
...forgiving and being reconciled are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the pain, the degradation, the TRUTH.
It can sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worth while, because in the end dealing with the real situation can bring about healing... in forgiving people are not asked to forget. On the contrary, it is important to remember, so that we should not let such atrocities happen again.
Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously and not minimizing it; drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our own existence."
Commenting on his own contemporary situation, Tutu continues, "reconciliation is liable to be a long-drawn out process with ups and downs, not something accomplished overnight and certainly by a commission, however effective... (but) to work for reconciliation is to want to realize God's dream for humanity -- when we will know that we are indeed members of one family, bound together in a delicate network of interdependence.
With love and prayers,
Mother Susan +