Evil and forgiveness

Is forgiveness more shocking than murder? When the Amish community suffered its horrific loss recently at the hands of an armed outsider, the forgiveness they expressed to him and his family was as shocking to some as the horror it forgave.

But why, in a country supposedly guided by Judeo-Christian ethics, should empathy and forgiveness be so foreign to us?

In the early morning of 9/11, after the first plane hit, I remember thinking “Now things will have to change...” In that instant it was clear to me that an intolerable inequity had finally tipped the scales and we had been delivered into a new world, one that could no longer ignore the injustices of poverty and exploitation.

It turns out I was wrong. Boy, was I wrong.

go to column

Two slogans

This time around, I have two somewhat different topics at the top of my brain, competing for attention—namely, the one I was working on, and the one that forcefully presented itself to us a number of days ago in a one-room Amish schoolhouse. Each is summed up in a simple slogan: “failure is success.”

Failure is success

You’ve probably heard the “doublethink” slogans from George Orwell’s masterpiece, “Nineteen Eighty-Four”: “war is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is strength.”

Let me add “failure is success” for the strategists of the Bush administration.

go to column